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Wedding Etiquette

Wedding Speech Etiquette – Do’s And Don’ts!

By July 18, 2011July 16th, 2018No Comments

Wedding Speech EtiquetteWe have heard it all, good and bad, short and impossibly long, funny and not so much funny wedding speeches. This article will focus on wedding speech etiquette and how to keep it simple and classy.

Modern day wedding venues have rather loose wedding speech etiquette they abide do, however there are some basic rules that should be observed in order to show your respects and start your wedding off in the positive manner.

Do’s: According to our wedding speech etiquette the very first wedding toast is reserved specially for the father of the bride. In his speech he welcomes all guests to the wedding and thanks them for coming, he also honors the bride and the groom in his speech and wishes them a long and happy marriage ahead.

The next wedding speech is usually held by the groom in which he acknowledges the bride’s parents and his own and thanks them for helping out with the wedding. It’s important to remember to keep your wedding speech on a shorter side rather than long.

After the bride’s father and groom, the best man takes the center stage. Best men are notorious for giving funny wedding toasts. Prepare in advance to make sure your toast is actually going to be funny to other people not just yourself. The maid of honor speech presents the bride and acknowledges her parents who put in a lot of efforts in raising such a wonderful future wife to the groom.

Again, there are no strict guidelines about wedding speech etiquette and you can mix it up the way you want, just make sure you treat the entire wedding party with due respect and acknowledge bride’s and groom’s parents.

The last but not least wedding speech etiquette piece is to give an opportunity for the bride and groom to thank all the guests for coming close to the end of the formal dinner before the fun wedding activities begin. In bride’s speech she can honor her parents and her now in-laws by thanking them and looking forward to wonderful years ahead.

Don’ts: Speaking unprepared is a major wedding speech mistake. Preparation is the key –state all your important thoughts, thank appropriate people and give an opportunity for the next orator to speak.

If you are a guest, prolonging your wedding speech for over 5-7 minutes should be avoided. Nobody wants to hear a 30-minute monologue especially if you have had too much to drink. The best man can help the situation out by saying a polite joke and moving on to the next guest speaker.

Speaking about some of groom’s childhood or teenage incidents could be funny for you but embarrassing for the groom, especially if he would rather keep them private.

Learn our wedding rehearsal dinner etiquette and find out who is invited and who pays for what by reading one of our other articles on this subject.

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