Overcoming The Five Biggest Wedding Speech Obstacles
Authoring and more significantly, delivering a wedding speech is not an easy task. Despite one’s personal love and affection for the bride or groom, there are many obstacles that can stand in the way of a polished, memorable wedding speech. To begin, one can fail to set aside an adequate amount of time for planning and preparation. Also, one can select inappropriate material for a wedding speech, such as overly personal anecdotes. Third, the simple, yet pervasive fear of public speaking can make for both poor preparation and performance. In addition, an individual may fail to practice the delivery of the wedding speech beforehand, which is an integral part of an effective preparation. Finally, one may consume too much food and alcohol during the reception prior to the wedding speech, making for a sloppy and grossly uninhibited toast.
First, you must be careful to set aside enough time to plan and prepare for the wedding toast. Delivering an effective speech is a difficult thing, especially for those unpracticed in and unfamiliar with the art and routing of speech making. Therefore, to afford an appropriate amount of respect to the difficulties of speech making, you must plan and prepare thoroughly. You can begin by copying down notes – simple notes on what you would like to include in a wedding speech for the bride and groom. For example, one may wish to recount a particular vacation taken with the bride or the groom. Next, one should select an appropriate theme for the wedding speech, such as “love”, “friendship”, “commitment”, or “relationships”, and eliminate any notes that do not pertain to the theme. Finally, the remaining notes should be organized into an outline. This outline should consist of an introduction, body, and conclusion, all of which should flow together in a logical fashion.
Second, in jotting down notes and constructing an outline for the wedding speech, one should be sure to select appropriate material for a wedding speech. It is advisable to steer clear of several controversial topics including overly personal anecdotes, bathroom humor and vulgar jokes, pointed criticism of any member of the attending families, and a recount of any previous marriages of the bride or groom. While the introduction of the wedding speech is a good place for a humorous anecdote, it is important to keep these stories appropriate for all members of the audience. And, while previous marriages may be construed as “life lessons” or “character building” experiences, these discussions should be left for another time.
A third thing to contemplate while delivering a wedding speech is the pervasive and wide spread fear of public speaking – a fear from which so many people suffer. Public speaking is a terrifying, almost paralyzing prospect for many people. What’s more, in the case of a wedding speech, a fear of public speaking harms not only the individual delivering the speech, but also the bride and groom. Poorly delivered wedding speeches can make an awkward and uncomfortable moment at the height of the wedding reception. That being said, it is important to take enough time to plan and prepare for the wedding speeches, so that the “public speaking jitters” don’t ruin the moment.
Following that train of thought, it is crucially important that the individual responsible for the wedding speech practice the delivery of the speech beforehand. This practice involves not only taking notes and constructing outline, but also a serious and deliberate walk through of the speech itself – where to stand, which words to use, how fast to speak, what to do with one’s hands, etc. There are a great many things that go into the few minutes that may comprise a successful (or an unsuccessful) wedding speech. If one neglects these details, opting to save any delivery of the wedding speech for the moment of the speech itself, a host of things may go wrong: the speaker may talk to quickly, the speaker may gesture too wildly with his or her hands, or the speaker may fumble over his or her words. So, just as much as it is important to plan and prepare, it is also important to practice and rehearse your speech until you are absolutely confident that it’s no longer going to create a problem at the reception.
Finally, it is important to moderate the consumption of food and alcohol prior to the delivery of wedding speeches or wedding toasts. Although the ample buffets and open bars of most wedding receptions can be tempting, an upset stomach or a cloudy mind are two of the easiest, yet most drastic ways in which one may ruin a wedding speech. All the planning, preparation, and practice previously discussed could be for naught if the speaker temporarily or permanently incapacitated during the time for the wedding speech. The good news, however, is that this is easily avoided by eating and drinking in moderation up until the delivery of the speech.
To summarize, there are five prime challenges you need to address in order to pull off reasonably good wedding speeches every time you need to give one. And those are preparation, appropriateness, anxiety, practice, and wedding day moderation. Fortunately, all of these challenges are capable of being overcome. All that is required is adequate time, meaningful effort, and a respectful approach to the task of delivering the best wedding speech possible.
