Pile of Dross

Apparently inspired by my posting of my best man’s speech for his wedding, Graeme has put out the
call for blog posts about his wedding which reminded me that I had noted down some thoughts before I went to sleep afterwards, but never got round to posting, so once more with the blockquoting:

Post wedding -

At last the nightmare ends – bloody speech is given. Spent goodly amounts of time chatting to various folks I see even less than the people I see occasionally, and spent a even more goodly amount of time chatting to them too.

I do have to wonder whether there’s a genetic imperative for Scotsmen to sing and dance like a complete loon when nicely drunk, either that or I’m less of a curmudgeon than I let on – the only two explanations why me and ColinD seemed so in sync with each other.

Several people came up to me beforehand and told the speech would be fine, that everyone’s on my side etc etc etc, but I am a natural worrier, so these words while comforting to my conscious mind really did little to ease the subconscious icy ball that had taken up residence in my stomach.

Choosing to go with the “saying nice things about the groom in slightly twisted way” speech rather than the more traditional “make groom out to be complete imbecile” speech which had been crafted after much study of internet websites turned out to be the smartest gut instinct I’ve ever had. It fitted nicely in with what the Father (and Mother) of the bride said (by pure luck) – certainly one of the jokes in the ‘nasty’ speech would have fallen flat, as the incident had already been set out in a much nicer light already and I think the whole tone would have been wrong – one of the themes of the the FotB speech was how worthy the Groom was to marry the Bride – jarring to paint a picture of him as a buffoon after that.
The speech was possibly a touch too short or possibly I was going too fast – but I wasn’t aware of me gabbling – which I normally am- so short is more plausible. Still I’ve never seen so many people laugh so heartily at the word ‘Graeme’ before. And I didn’t muck up my toast, so that’s somewhat of a relief – always a danger, I think, of people toasting the wrong thing at the wrong time.

So advice for future best men:
Either be aware of what the Father of the Bride is going to say, or don’t be too nasty about the groom. The general lesson is work out how the speech fits into the evening – you’re typically last to talk so have to tread carefully and should probably avoid anecdotes that have already been mentioned.
Cue the audience when you want them to do things and once they’re cued get to what you cued them for sharpish, avoid all digressions and
asides or don’t wave your toasting glass around while doing so, as some people may be cueing off of the raising of the glass more than what you’re saying.
Short and pithy is probably better than long and drawn out – a short speech with a few jokes will go down better than a long speech with the same number of jokes.
People will laugh where and for how long they feel like it, don’t force it along or look upset if its not going quite how you anticipated – go with the flow – but they will try to find the funny if its well signposted enough – even if the punchline is not that funny – its a genuine friendly audience – you’d have to work really hard to alienate them.
Bride is best thing since sliced bread – no one in their right mind is going to disagree with someone complimenting the bride on her wedding day, but too much might look a bit odd.
In fact in general saying nice things about people is a good road to take.
And the final advice for future best men: don’t take the job in the first place, go along to the reception and (quietly) laugh at the poor sod who did agree to do it and generally have a good time – its so much less stress.

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