An Open Letter to the Best Man

Last week, I had the pleasure of reading a weblog post dedicated to me. So, in the spirit of blogging sycophancy, the following is an open letter to my good friend Dezik who is worrying about his forthcoming wedding duties and the dreaded best man’s speech.

Greetings Dezik and congratulations! I hope you have a great time. In answer to your plea for help I have put together a little How To for the best man’s speech. Although I am no pro, I do have two best man’s speeches under my belt and neither have resulted in disaster!

Anyway, this isn’t a foolproof guide, and you’re going to have to do most of the work yourself—after all you know the groom. But what I can do is help with structure and ideas to create a speech that will hopefully have everyone laughing and the groom holding his breath. Knowing you as well as I do, I have no doubt you will achieve both…and more.

As far as I can tell, a best man’s speech is a portrait of the groom. And a funny best man’s speech is a caricature: his faults, his weaknesses, his embarrassing past. It’s slightly tough because you have to make him look lousy in front of his mum and dad, his new in-laws, as well as granny and granddad. It has to be suitable for ages 8 to 80 and accessible to people who know him intimately and those who barely know him at all. So how do you do it?

1. Space it out. Set Microsoft Word to 1.5 lines spacing and increase the font size to 14. You want to be able to read it clearly. And you want plenty of space to make changes with a pen.

2. Theme. You don’t know it yet but there is an underlying theme to your speech. That theme is the groom’s overriding personality trait: lazy, neurotic, clumsy, foul mouthed, soppy, depressing, overly optimistic, self obsessed, a show off? This will be the thread for your speech. Everything you say for the first three and a half or four minutes will be related back to this theme. (The speech itself should be no longer than five minutes.)

3. Write. Don’t just sit there trying to think of a place to start. All speeches start in the same place so get writing. A good opener can be something along the lines of “Ladies and gentlemen, [insert parents of the bride], [insert parents of the groom], [insert bride] and [insert groom]. It is the job of every best man to tell it like it is, so I apologize for what I am about to say. It may not be pretty, but it is the truth… “

Now, literally puke up those anecdotes and memories onto the screen. They don’t have to perfectly match the theme but they should be at least related. A good starting point would be when you and the groom first met. Talk about what you thought of him, what he looked like, what he wore, or where you hung out. Is there something amusing or embarrassing that relates to the way he is now?

4. Keep going. Now relate either of these things to his personality. For example, if you’re talking about the way he was a bit accident prone as a kid, do you have any anecdotes that illustrate his utter ineptitude then and now? If he thought he was cool at school because he had long hair and a tattoo, does he still go out of the way to look cool now?

5. Move in for the kill. Now you’ve got your audience on side you can go a bit deeper. Think of an example or two of something amusing or embarrassing that the groom did or had done to him that matches your theme. Take the audience there. What was he saying/doing and how was he saying/doing it?

6. The Softener You’ve just trashed the groom in front of everyone. You’ve insinuated that he is the worst possible person to have as a friend let alone a husband or a son-in-law. What are you going to do about it? There are two answers. You can choose one or both:

(a) Turn his weakness into a strength. Take whatever it is you’ve just been ribbing him about and turn it to his advantage—he may be so laid back that he’s almost horizontal but that’s been a big help to you over the years. Or maybe the fact that he’s a perfectionist when it comes to his appearance has made him a perfectionist in all areas of life.

(b) Despite all his faults you’ve watched the groom grow into a wonderful human being and much of that is down to the bride! Here’s your chance to start talking about what a positive influence the bride has been on the groom, how happy he is, how well he is doing etc.

6. The Couple. You’ve got one or two paragraphs to talk about them. Something about the way they are together, the sacrifices they have made for each other, the way the bride has been a positive influence on the groom. How happy they are together.

7. The toast. And because they’re so wonderful you would like to propose a toast to the bride and groom!

8. Now that you’re done. Read it and time yourself. Try to keep the speech to about five minutes–six max. Massage out any sentences that you trip over and bear in mind that on the day you will probably be nervous and will therefore read a bit faster.

9. Run it by one friend who knows the groom and see what they think. Guaranteed they will have some good advice.

10. Read it again and again and again. Come the wedding day you are going to be a bag of nerves! And the best way to combat nerves and to deliver a convincing performance is to know your speech by heart. When it’s time to deliver the speech try to slow yourself down a bit.

Oh, and 11. Good luck!

Links for today
Mr Spock is the Lord of the Rings (via Cake Or Death)
At least one Apple user is not happy with yesterday’s announcements.
Michael Totten is off to Iraqi Kurdistan.