Top Man Wedding Speech: Why I Sucked the Initially Time and Blew Them Away the Second Time

The wedding day has been replaced by the wedding weekend, which includes a jam packed schedule of activities.

For a Saturday wedding, the wedding weekend will likely begin on a Thursday. This is the ideal time for the bride to host a ladies' luncheon, a lunch which she gives to show her appreciation for her bridesmaids. The guest list is small for this event: the bride, the bridesmaids, the flower girl, and the mothers of the bride and groom.

Once upon a time, the first party of the wedding weekend was the rehearsal dinner the night before the main event, but many couples are now choosing to have informal Thursday night gatherings as well. They are generally pretty loose affairs, with any wedding guests who are already in town welcome to attend. Relaxed dinners like barbeques and clam bakes work particularly well for the Thursday night party. If you are not up for organizing anything, just book a private room in a family style restaurant and spread the word that all are welcome to join the bride and groom for dinner.

If you did not host a ladies' luncheon, this would be the perfect time to present your bridesmaids with a pair of pearl earrings or other token of your appreciation. Friday afternoon is the usual time for the wedding rehearsal, and it is important that all hands are on deck for this event.

Friday night is the traditional time for the rehearsal dinner. The customary guest list includes the bride and groom, their immediate families, the wedding party with their spouses, and the officiant and his or her spouse. In recent years, some couples have opted to host a wedding welcome dinner instead of a rehearsal dinner. The difference is that the welcome dinner is open to everyone, which can make a lot of sense if a large percentage of your wedding guests will be out-of-towners.

On Saturday will come the wedding ceremony and reception, of course, but that is not all. For ceremonies with a 4pm start time or later, it has become very popular to arrange a group activity to keep people entertained before the wedding.

The final thing to add to your wedding weekend is a post-wedding brunch on Sunday morning. It is really just a great way to cap off a wonderful weekend of wedding fun.

Planning a Weekend of Wedding Events

I was quite young the first time a friend of mine asked me to be his Best Man.

So off we went and hurtled headlong towards the wedding.

Then it was speech time!

Also, the average wedding costs a small fortune; some people spend as much on the wedding as they would on a small car, others as much as a house! If you are human, then yes you are.

Traditionally the Best Man is seen as being responsible for two major parts of the wedding event: the stag do and the speech at the reception; so lets look at each of these.

Then there was the speech. Basically, turn off the monitor and type everything that comes into your head as you think about the Bride and Groom, and I mean everything: if you think "Bride ; Groom, hmmm, don't know really, do I really know them… then that is what you type. Time is everything. One line is not a speech, it is barely a toast: 30 minutes is not a speech it is rambling! Rather use bullet points, remember though, practice, practice, practice.

Your speech is about the Bride and Groom, but you are delivering to the whole room.