How to write a wedding speech

From what to say to how long to speak for, here’s how to write a wedding speech people will actually want to listen to.

Wedding speeches can be one of the most memorable parts of a wedding day.

They can also be one of the most terrifying parts if you’ve just been handed a microphone and suddenly realised an entire room is waiting for you to say something meaningful.

Whether you’re a parent, member of the wedding party, best friend or one half of the newly married couple, a great wedding speech doesn’t need to be perfectly polished or worthy of its own Netflix special.

It just needs to feel genuine.

So if you’ve got a blank page, a blinking cursor and absolutely no idea where to begin, here’s a good place to start.

Start with the person, not the speech

Before worrying about introductions, jokes or how you’re going to finish, write down what you actually want to say about the person you’re speaking about.

Think about:

• How would you describe them to someone who had never met them?
• What do you admire about them?
• What are they like as a friend, sibling, son, daughter or partner?
• What changed when their partner came into their life?
• What do you love about them as a couple?
• Is there a story that perfectly captures who they are?
• What do you genuinely wish for their marriage?

You’re not writing the speech yet. You’re simply finding the good stuff.

Once you have that, it’s much easier to work out what belongs in the final version.

Keep it personal

The speeches people remember aren’t usually the ones filled with generic advice about love and marriage.

They’re the ones that couldn’t have been given at anybody else’s wedding.

Tell us about the person.

Share the little details. The story everyone close to them immediately recognises. The quality you’ve always admired. The moment you realised their partner was going to become part of the family.

Specific beats generic almost every time.

Tell stories, but choose them wisely

A good story can make a wedding speech.

Five stories detailing every questionable decision the groom made between 2009 and 2017 probably won’t.

Choose one or two stories that actually tell us something about the person you’re speaking about. Funny is wonderful, but the story should have somewhere to go beyond simply getting a laugh.

And remember that the room may include grandparents, colleagues, children and people meeting each other for the first time.

If you have to begin with “I probably shouldn’t tell this story…”, that may be your answer.

You don’t have to be funny

There seems to be an unwritten rule that wedding speeches need to resemble stand-up comedy.

They don’t.

If you’re naturally funny, absolutely use that. A little humour can make a speech feel relaxed and completely like you.

But don’t force jokes because you think you’re supposed to.

A sincere speech delivered by someone who genuinely loves the couple will always land better than six jokes downloaded from the internet.

If you are making jokes, don’t make the couple the punchline

A little affectionate teasing is very different from embarrassing someone in front of everyone they know.

Avoid jokes about ex-partners, sex, money, family tensions or anything you know one of the couple is genuinely sensitive about.

The safest rule is fairly simple: laugh with them, not at them.

You want the couple looking forward to hearing your speech, not quietly wondering what you’re about to reveal.

Keep it shorter than you think

You do not need fifteen minutes.

In fact, unless you’ve been specifically asked to give a longer speech, somewhere around three to five minutes is usually plenty of time to say something meaningful without losing the room.

This becomes particularly important when there are several speeches.

Four people giving five-minute speeches feels lovely.

Four people independently deciding they each deserve fifteen minutes becomes an unexpected conference.

A simple wedding speech structure

If you’ve gathered all your ideas but can’t work out how to turn them into a speech, keep the structure simple.

Introduce yourself

Not everyone in the room will know who you are.

Briefly explain your relationship to the couple before you launch into stories about them.

Talk about your person

Share what you love or admire about them and, if it fits, a story that shows everyone exactly what you mean.

Bring their partner into it

Talk about when you met them, what you’ve noticed about their relationship or why you think they work so beautifully together.

If you’re speaking as a parent, sibling or close friend, this can be an especially lovely part of the speech.

Talk about them together

Move from talking about them as individuals to the life they’ve created as a couple.

Finish with something meaningful

Share your wishes for their marriage, tell them you love them, welcome someone into the family or simply say how happy you are to be celebrating alongside them.

Then raise your glass.

You don’t need an elaborate ending. Sincere usually wins.

Write it down

Even if you’re confident speaking in front of people, I’d still recommend having your speech written down.

You don’t necessarily need to read every word from the page, but having it there means you’re not relying entirely on your memory while standing in front of a room full of people.

Cards or a nicely printed copy also tend to work better than reading from your phone.

Apart from looking nicer in photographs, it prevents an unfortunately timed notification from Steve from Work appearing halfway through your heartfelt tribute.

Practise it out loud

Just like wedding vows, a speech can look completely different on paper than it sounds when spoken.

Read it out loud several times.

You’ll hear where sentences are too long, where you’ve repeated yourself and where something that seemed hilarious while typing doesn’t quite work once it leaves your mouth.

It’s also the easiest way to work out how long your speech actually is.

Time yourself at least once.

Speak slowly

Nerves have an extraordinary ability to turn three minutes of carefully written material into approximately 47 seconds.

Slow down.

Take a breath between sections. Look up at the couple. Let people laugh before you start talking again.

You don’t need to race towards the end.

And if you get emotional, give yourself a second. Nobody in the room is waiting impatiently for you to pull yourself together.

Those moments are often what make wedding speeches so special.

Think about where speeches fit into the day

The timing of speeches can make a surprisingly big difference to how they feel.

Some couples have all their speeches together during dinner. Others split them between courses, have a few before dinner or even move speeches into cocktail hour.

There isn’t one correct approach.

Think about how many people are speaking, how long dinner will run and whether anyone giving a speech is likely to spend the entire meal nervously rearranging potatoes while waiting for their turn.

Your photographer and wedding coordinator can also help you think through how speeches fit alongside the rest of your timeline.

And if you’re the couple, give your speakers a little guidance

If you’ve asked someone to give a speech, it’s completely reasonable to give them a rough idea of what you’re hoping for.

Tell them approximately how long you’d like speeches to be and whether there are any topics you’d rather weren’t shared.

If you’re having several speakers, letting everyone know the plan beforehand can also prevent each person from independently preparing their own feature-length production.

You don’t need to control what they say. A little guidance simply helps everyone feel more confident.

The best wedding speeches sound like you

You don’t need the perfect opening line.

You don’t need to make the entire room cry.

And you definitely don’t need to become a professional public speaker overnight.

Tell a good story. Say what you mean. Keep it relatively short and remember who you’re speaking to.

Because years from now, the couple probably won’t remember whether you stumbled over a sentence.

They’ll remember what you said about them.