Designing The Best Man speech, Groom speech or Father of the Bride speech

How do you design a wedding speech, especially one that’s to cover a lot of elements: Comedy, Love, Respect, Tragedy, Romance, Personal etc etc? Where do you start? How do you make it so you can design a speech that covers all you want it to and still keep those nerves from getting the better of you?

Well, I’m going to let you into a few secrets here in this wedding blog that will make it all a lot easier for you! So read on and get ready to take down some notes and get your Best Man Speech, Groom Speech or Father of the Bride Speech Rockin!!!

Get your Cuppa’ ready, as there’s no sumptious pictures and images just a good read 🙂

Oh and if you missed any of the previous posts on these check out the links below 🙂

(On this wedding blog we’ve covered some of the key psychological aspects of the Best man speech, groom speech and father of the bride speech as well as how to view your audience differently Best man speech, groom speech and father of the bride speech part 2 (and not as a pack of wolves) Best man speech, groom speech and father of the bride speech part 3 .

Best Man Speech, Groom Speech, Father of the Bride Speech | Step 1 – The Story

“When I first began presenting I was a shy young adult, I’m still not sure why I did it and what on earth possesed me to get up and present to people? Why did I put myself into the stupid position of waiting to get humilitated and made to look stupid? What would cause me to get up and stand in front of a sea of nameless people and pretend I had something they would want to listen to?

Well my friend let me let you into a little secret (Shhhh)

(((It was because I was passionate about the subject I wanted to talk about – I mean really passionate)))

You see I’d always felt I was destined for something greater (well at least something that I enjoyed doing and wanted to do !!! )  than what I was doing at the time – I loved art (I was damn good at it) and playing guitar (I was getting damn good at it :-)) but couldn’t stand the thought of spending the rest of my life doing something that wasn’t me, something that was expeceted of me i.e. a 9-5 job….

And so…I went and learnt some stuff and then noticed something very curious about doing presentations and speeches -” **

A RE-CAP of Best Man Speech, Groom Speech, Father of the Bride Speech | Step 1 – The Story

What Did I just do – I started with a story 🙂 yes?

A story pulls people in to what you say faster than anything else. You see one of the things I learnt along my journey is that not only do people love stories, they love stories no matter how badly they are told as long as …. there’s some ‘meaning or punch line to it’

(you can do stories without the punch lines and what these do is to…) *

Step 1 – Start with a story – you’ll pull your crowd in faster than McDonalds in a Desert.

*(…wonder what it was all about and what the point of the story was) great for coaching, but not for best man speeches.

Step 2 – The Passion

I’ve watched so many people present and do speeches over the years and the one thing that keeps coming up between those that get good responses from the audiences and those that don’ t is…

I’m sure you guessed it from the title – ‘Passion’

If you’re doing your best man speech, groom speech or father of the bride speech, do it with gusto, with passion, with love, energy and enthusiasm. People will applaud this much more than a well written and crafted speech that was as exciting as a trainspotters lunchpack.

Get passionate – Find something you are passionate to talk about, that you want to share.

(let me let you into another secret – it’s called Mirror Neurons) Over the last few years scientists have come across this thing called Mirror Neurons, essentially what this means is, (it’s a bit like emotional telepathy) when you watch someone doing something your brains ‘neurons’ are also activated in much the same way as the person doing the doing (if you get my drift).

What this means is – if you’re passionate and energetic with your speech, your crowds brain pattern will match yours, so they’ll also be ‘feelin it’ too!!!

Isn’t that just awesome 🙂

Sooooooo Get Your Passion Fruit Happenin’

(PS if you’re a business owner too – Do the same thing – you’ll get more referrals and business this way 😉 Just ‘sayin.

Step 3 – The Intention and Point

When you think about your speech, what’s the point of it? What is it your trying to convey and get over to the people sitting in their chairs?

Remember, speeches without points are like trees without leaves, they’re naked and bear no fruit.

So think of it this way –

What is the point of your speech? (it’s best to have 1 major point and 2 subpoints)

What is your intention?

Just answer these two questions and you’ll be 90% of the way there!

Step 4 – Keep it Simple

It’s all too easy to want to do the fancy smancy kick a–‘ speech and have everyone at the end giving you a standing ovation and making songs and telling tails of the day you…

….Sank like a smoked haddock… because you tried to make it too complex with a joke here, a story there, a testiment somewhere else, and then another joke here and another completely unrelated story there.

“One of the first presentations I did  was in front of 120 small business professionals. They wanted to know how to get help with stress at work. So I took all my study and knowledge and created the Golden Goose Egg of presentations. It sank…faster than the haddock! It was Waaaaaay too complex. So today… I keep them simple and they rock 🙂

Dividing the best man speech, the groom speech, the father of the bride speech into bite size chunks

Divide it up into 3 seperate chunks (points)

(for example) if you’re doing  the best man speech.

1. Point 1 – (major point) The Groom (my best friend) is a caring and warm chap who helps others even when he’s down.
2. Point 2 (subpoint) I want to show how our relationship has been so great over the years and that because of the groom’s strength and character this will also help him in his marriage
3. Point 3 (subpoint) I want people to see that Charlie (the groom) has a sense of humour and he’s not a stick in the mud, you just have to get to know him…and it’s this dry sense of humour that will make him a wonderful husband

These will form the basis of your speech. All you need to do now is find example and stories of where these happened. They could be funny stories, or emotional accounts. That’s up to you, just make sure you’re passionate about the stories!

 Step 5 Get Creative in Designing

It’s all too easy to write it all up on MSWord or Powerpoint or on the back of a napkin… but these don’t get your creative juices flowing that well  (if at all).

Use some of these methods to get your mind into storming gear.

Do’s

• Use post it notes to get your ideas down
• Put them on a board and put them up in strange angles and places
• Add pictures to it (draw them, even if you can’t draw – stick figures are fine)
• Use different coloured pens and pencils
• Read up on how to use MindMaps (great books from Tony Buzan on Amazon for this)
• Sketch it up on BIG sheets of paper
• Doodle
• Act it out
• Have fun with it, as if you were a kid again
• Move about when you design it helps activate your creativity
• Keep it simple
• Add to them every time you get an inspiration

Don’ts

• Don’t write it up word for word, this’ll kill it faster than anything
• Don’t just write bullet points, add pictures & drawings
• Don’t take critisicm of your ideas as harsh judgment, it’s just their opinion (go with your gut feeling)
• Don’t show it to everyone – just to the people who’s opinion you respect
• Stop judging yourself and what you’ve done, you will be your worst critic!!! Let go and enjoy it

Step 6 – Putting it together

Take all your ideas, notes, drawings doodles etc and start to arrange them into a sequence from Story 1 (major point 1) to the last story Subpoint 2 and with the FINAL story being the Punchline from Story 1 (the Major Point – Deliver this at the end – Watch people like Billy Connolly or Eddie Izzard, they do this with their comedic stories) create an order of how it will play out.

Then rehearse the speech – (DO NOT rehearse it word for word, you’re not going to get an Oscar for remembering your lines!!!) Be natural and let the doodles and sketches etc that you’ve played with enter into your mind.

Rehearse it while walking, driving, in the bath, while daydreaming… just let it all flow naturally. It will all come naturally on the day if you’ve played around with it for a while.

Step 7 – The Punch Line

The end of the speech is where you wrap it all up, where you get to…

** “So after I’d spent all the years learning this ‘stuff’ and began presenting and doing speeches, I had learnt that people become entrapped in stories, they love stories more than anything. In fact most of my trainings and personal coaching are about telling stories, stories that help people identify something about themselves within them. I quickly noticed that it wasn’t wether I was a great presenter or not, or how confident I was on stage or how well I knew my subject that counted… it was how much the people identified something inside themselves with the stories that were being told that they could go ‘yeah – that’s me too – I’ve done that, I know what you mean’…

…that made a difference.

And so today I tell stories for presentations and speeches, because they’re powerful.

Because what you’ve just read is the ‘punch line’ to the first Major Story (point 1)

And Finally-

The Best Man Speech, The Groom Speech, The Father of the Bride Speech

– Can all be done by.

• Telling stories
• Being passionate
• Keeping it simple
• Having a Major point
• Being creative in design
• Giving a Punch line that comes from the first story
• Summarising – The Wrap Up

And…if you go over this post you’ll see that this post follows everything that you’ve just read.

Enjoy and have fun 🙂

Rob

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P.P.S. Hope you enjoyed your Cuppa’ 🙂

In NEXT week’s post (the last in the series) I’ll be showing you something you can use that’s Uber COOL!! Look out for it then.