Are You Nervous of Delivering Your Best Man Speech ?
The 2009 Wedding Season is almost here and Best Man Speech Insight is ready to help the best men around the world with their best man speeches. The recession may force some of the couples to restrict their wedding budgets to affordable limits only. Some marriages could be deferred to some later dates. But even then we can safely say that thousands of weddings are still going to be staged with full vigor and in time.
Now back to best man and best man speeches. The problem with most best men is that they unnecessarily tend to complicate the whole best man speech idea. Please keep it simple guys. That’s the key. Keep your best man speech simple … and short. Even if you consider yourself to be a confident public speaker please be precise. Believe me you can make your mark even with a four and a half minute of best man speech.
I got a mail from one of my potential customer who considers himself to be a nervous best man and was inquiring if we have sample best man speeches exclusively for the nervous best man or if we can help him anyway. I replied asking if he is nervous by nature or he is nervous because public speaking is not his cup of tea. Guess what? He replied that though he is gentle and not very extrovert but by no means nervous. Well, to me this best man is a normal guy, just like you and me. He is nervous because he thinks delivering a best man speech is as hard and anything. He read articles where the writer warns his readers that gone are the days when you can throw a couple of sentences and a say a few words to toast the newlyweds. He further adds that today your best man speech should be planned, professionally written, and thoroughly entertaining.
What if you stand up say thanks to the groom who just handed over the microphone to you for his speech and selecting you as the best man? Is that hard to say? Then, greet the audience for attending the reception. Is that too difficult? (Did you realize that you have already got a start?) Can you remember a couple of funny or interesting anecdotes involving you and the groom. No? Okay, you can still do fine. Please don’t try to manufacture funny stories. If there is nothing funny about the groom you can’t make fun out of him. Can you? Are you getting it? Well, I have already written a lot on how to write and deliver better best man speeches. In fact the entire site is about it. If you can thank, greet, praise you can give a best man speech.
There’s nothing to be nervous about best man speeches. Be yourself. Don’t try to be too formal. Just speak the way you do. Remember you are not acting. Be honest and sincere. Don’t hurry through your speech. And please do not try to give an impromptu speech. You must prepare and rehearse well in advance. When I say practice and rehearse often people get nervous. You only need to practice to get your speech organized so that you don’t have to search for words while making the speech.
Well, I have said it several times already but will again remind you that you can get a head start with your best man speech simply by downloading some sample best man speeches. They are available for free and there are paid packages. If you go for the paid package please make sure that the package also contains a guide that will help you on your best man speech. If you have some time, believe me, you can come up with a pretty decent best man speech without even spending a dollar. But paid versions, on the other hand, offer a cookie-cutter type solution. If you feel that you need help you can get the Best Man Speech Insight Premium Pack. It has got everything you need to give good, decent and confident (and funny too …. If you insist) best man speeches.
Amazing History of The Best Man
Yesterday your buddy Paul called you and simply let you know you that he wants you to be his best man at his wedding which is less than a month from now. And you don’t know if you should be happy to hear that though you do agree that this is quite an honor for you. At least you know that you don’t have to accompany the groom to kidnap the bride from her.
That’s exactly what you would be doing if you were born centuries ago in Britain, Scotland to be precise. Phew!
The history of the tradition of the best man goes back to as early as the sixteenth century when the sole duty of the best man was to help the groom kidnap a woman who he is going to marry.
In modern time, the foremost duty of the best man is to help the groom to get ready for the big day, present the wedding rings when they are needed and arrange for the bachelor party. But in the past, the best man was trusted with a very different sort of responsibility.
The Tradition of Kidnapping the Bride
This custom of kidnapping of the bride is believed to have originated from the Germanic Goths. Traditionally, it was usual for a man to marry a woman who lived in the same town or village where he lives. But sometimes there were not enough women in that town or village. In those cases the groom had to go to neighboring towns or localities to find a suitable bride for himself. Once he found the bride of his choice he would soon invade the locality and kidnap his desired woman and eventually marry her. The groom would ask one of his intimate friends who he thinks to be the best man to assist him to support him in getting the job done.
The best man then would also try to protect the couple (actually the groom) during the wedding and make sure that the bride’s family (who would obviously try to get her back) stays away from the place of wedding unless of course they are prepared to accept the groom. And that’s not all. It was the responsibility of the best man to thwart any other man from hijacking the bride.
The best man customarily used to stand to the right of the groom, by having his hand on the sword, throughout the wedding ceremony, prepared to protect the groom and the bride from any probable threat.
So, you should consider yourself lucky that you have only the best man speech to deal with.
Why it is important to have well thought out opening lines for your Best Man Speech
Well, I scrolled down to see all the posts I have already posted on best man speeches and couldn’t find a post on best man speech openers. Wonder how I missed that since your whole best man speech will depend on the opening lines. It’s very important that you get a head start with your speech and a perfect opening could ensure that more than anything else. You can use the opening lines of your speech to set the mood of your speech right away. What I mean to say is if you wish to give a funny best man speech your opening lines should contain hints of humor in them. In fact, creating an outstanding best man speech would necessarily mean that you begin your speech with a catchy opening line. There are several options of best man speech openers for you to consider for example the classic or traditional opening, serious openings and witty or humorous openings.
As I have already said, the opening lines of the best man speeches often lay down the mood for your speech. And at the same time it also let you know the audience’s reaction. If you have a good start you can expect to get the attention from the audience from the word go. And once you know that you have a good start then there’s no looking back.
But as always, you need to plan well in advance. It’s not easy to come up with impromptu witty best man speech openings like that. A best man speech outline is what you need to create initially. There are several best man speech introductions available online (including this site). Pick the one you like most and customize it to suit your personality. Then all you need to do is include a humorous punchline 9In my last post I have discussed about including punclines in your best man speeches) in it and that’s how you can get yourself a humorous best man speech opening if not an awesome best man speech.
You will find at least 15 Best Man speech Openers and several Icebreakers in Best Man Speech Insight Premium
Best Man Speech Jokes – On using punch lines
What exactly do you need to do in order to make your best man speech real funny? Well, using best man speech jokes in your best man speech is a way to do it. In fact it’s the easiest way to do it. But it’s not easy to be funny if you aren’t funny by nature. I mean you at least need to have good sense of humor if you wish to give a funny best man speech. However, in both the cases, best man speech jokes are surely going to help you to add some fizz in your speech. But to make your speech humorous what you need to use are punch lines. So, what are punch lines?
A punch line is the final part of a joke or comedy sketch, usually the word, sentence or exchange of sentences which is intended to be funny and to provoke laughter from listeners.
Source: Wikipedia
Here is an example of a punch line which somebody used in his best man speech –
“… I am happy that Eric and Julia are getting married. Eric is happy to get Julia as his wife and Julia is happy to get Eric happy to get Eric as her husband. And Julia’s parents are happy to get their bathroom back. I mean that’s what they told me a while ago.”
Julia’s parents are happy to get their parents back – this is the punch line.
So, try to be creative while writing your best man speech. Try tweaking the best man speech jokes a little and see if you can come up with some good punch lines. I am trying to make a collection of good punch lines that you can include in your best man speech. But as I always say, it’s not only what you say but also how you say matters a lot especially when you are trying to make people laugh. So, rehearse your best man speech and see if the best man speech jokes you included blend well with your speech.
