How To Give A Best Man Speech

As a voice coach, I see a lot of best men and one of my favourite things to be asked to do because usually, I get best men coming to me who are absolutely terrified. They think that everybody is going to laugh at them for all the wrong reasons and that their mates are busy setting them up for a fool. And what usually happens by the end of the coaching is they go away, they do the speech and come back to me and say that "everybody came up to me and said that it was the best speech I have ever heard".

So I want to calm your fears, that if you do enough rehearsal and you deliver the speech with confidence and clarity, you will get a good response. Because the big rule of the best man's speech, is that as long as you look confident and you tell a couple of jokes, people really want you to do well. Everybody in that room is willing you to succeed.

Keep that in back of your mind.



But the next thing to know about the best man speech is that you really have to do the work. It is not something you can wing and the danger is that because the people get so scared.

They think 'Oh I am just going to leave it until the last minute'. Please, don't do that. Get it prepared.

Get it structured, learn it. Now, how I help people to do this.



First up, think about 3 or 4 stories about the groom. A funny story, a touching story, a story that tells about something in his past, maybe a story about the stag night, and write the stories down.

And start to think about where's the gag, where's the punch line, how much can I cut, really edit those stories down. Then shape those stories into a five minute speech. So you want an introduction, you want 3 stories and then you want a rap which obviously includes all the things that the bride and groom have asked you to say.

So you need to ask them what it is that they want you to say. Then once you've got a 5 to 10 minute speech, you have to practice it. And what I say to people is practice in the mirror at home, maybe 3 or 4 times and see, do I look confident? Do I look relaxed? Am I looking like I can make a good gag? Do I deliver the gag with a good punch? Really look at yourself critically and make sure that you doing all the things that you look for in a best man.

And then once you've got the speech a little bit polished, take it to someone who you trust, and it's really important that they're someone who is positive and can be constructive. And probably someone who's done a best man speech. And run this speech for them and get them to coach you a little bit.

So that you can really start to make it fly. At this stage, it is possibly a good idea to go and see a voice coach or speech coach for a session just to help them give you few tips and tricks to make the speech better.



And then on the day of the speech,it is really important that you don't have a script in hand.

You need to have learnt the speech so well that you can do it without a script; because as soon as you have a script in hand and you do this, you will be very very boring. So put the script down, step away and make eye contact. And when you're doing the speech, look people in the eye, say a line to them, look at someone else and then say a line to them.

So your speech basically becomes a relaxed conversation. And I think above all remember that no one ever says 'that speech was too short'. You keep it short and sweet with a couple of good gags, everybody will be happy and they'll come up to you at the end of the night and say 'that was the best speech I have ever heard'.

So those are my top tips for how to make a best man speech." .