There are a lot of different places where Americans meet their significant others. School, work, church, social organizations, through friends, just to name a few.
But one commonality in these organic means of meeting someone is that you don’t generally pursue a relationship from the start of getting to know them. A relationship or friendship marinates, it grows.
If you meet someone online, it gets the whole process reversed. Instead of getting to know someone and later seeing if a relationship could blossom, with online dating, the start of the conversation is often aimed at screening someone to see if a relationship could be possible.
I love weddings. I’ve had the chance to have a wedding (thanks Kari). I’ve officiated several weddings, and been in a few more. I also do public speaking every week.
Having to write a speech can be scary and a major source of stress for people who are less comfortable in front of an audience.
Listen to me. You can give a great wedding speech. You have it in you.
1. Do not make the toast about yourself!
Common mistake.
It’s not about you. People are not at the wedding for you. They’re there for the bride and groom. Make it about them.
Sure it’s appropriate to say how you know the bride and groom. It can be appropriate to share a story about you and the bride or groom or a story that involves you and the bride and groom.
But don’t have the toast revolve around you.
2. Keep it short
Have you ever seen a commercial that was so poignant it moved you in your soul? You can say something meaningful in a short time.
The Gettysburg Address was 272 words. That’s a 2-3 minute speech.
If your wedding toasts goes past four minutes, that’s too long.
Also to show what can be accomplished in a short period of time:
3. Humor is optional
Wedding toasts can be funny. But don’t feel pressure to make it funny.
Good rule of thumb: are you funny?
I’m not asking if you proclaim yourself to be funny. Do other people tell you you’re funny and laugh at things you say? If so, sure use humor if you want to. If not, don’t try to make a wedding toast the opportunity to do something you’re already bad at.
4. Do not say any of the following
“I”m not a professional speaker.” No one cares. I’ve seen people who have plenty of public speaking experience give terrible speeches. And I’ve seen people who have very little public speaking experience get up there, speak from the heart, and give awesome speeches. You don’t have to be a pro to speak well.
Similarly, if you make a mistake, don’t apologize, don’t say “oops,” keep going. People won’t remember it if you keep moving forward with the speech.
If you’re the best man, and you don’t know the bride very well or if you’re the maid of honor and you don’t know the groom very well, don’t say “I don’t really know (their name)…”
Don’t mention an ex of the bride or the groom in the speech. That person is from their old life. Your friend is going forward with someone else (who’s better).
5. Awkward and embarrassing stories about the bride and groom
Don’t!
No one looks back fondly at wedding toasts that were trying to embarrass the bride and groom. People do look back fondly at the ones that support the couple and where it is evident that the toast master has a lot of love for both the bride and groom.
6. DO NOT make jokes about their love for each other, commitment to each other, references to past relationships, or any suggestion whatsoever that the relationship might not last.
I once went to a wedding and the best man said “I wrote a great toast…but I plan to give it at his next wedding.”
That’s not funny.
It’s poor form. (Also that person did have a lot of public speaking experience and should have known better).
It dishonors the bride, the groom, and their marriage. It’s not the time or the place. In fact, it’s the worst time and place to joke about the status of their relationship or the sincerity of their love.
And while we’re at it:
7. Do not use the toast as a soap box to complain about marriage
Don’t say things that undermine or undervalue the union of marriage.
Maybe you’re cynical about love or marriage. Maybe you’re divorced. Whatever the case, if you’re not a huge fan of the commitment of marriage, that is not the time or place to share your views.
8. Public speaking tips
Don’t wing it. The week of the wedding, give some thought to your relationship with the bride and groom, practice a few times. If you’re drinking alcohol at the wedding, make sure you’re able to give a clear speech. Speak slowly. Breathe.
If you follow the rest of what I’ve said, you’re going to be fine. If you give a quick, sincere speech that focuses on the bride and groom, that shows a lot of love, you’re going to give a great speech.
Questions? Feel free to ask in the comments.
Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe!
Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.
My wife and I are huge fans of the show Shark Tank where entrepreneurs make pitches for businesses, products, and technologies to a group of five wealthy investors (sharks). New season started last night.
One of the things I appreciate about when entrepreneurs go into the tank is that the sharks don’t tolerate excuses.
People are trying to get investments, generally in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the sharks aren’t charities. They’re trying to make investments that will make them money.
There are a lot of lessons from Shark Tank that I think translate to life.
Don’t make excuses
You name the excuse, people have made it in the Shark Tank.
Many businesses have cited the economic downturn of 2008.
Younger enterpeneruers have made the excuse of their youth and inexperience. While those might be legitimate reasons why, they don’t matter much to an investor.
It’s one thing to have had adversity, but what have you done to overcome that and work through it? Grit matters.
And that’s true of life as well. We have challenges. Some of us have greater challenges than others. We can have a run of unfortunate circumstances. You can sit back and whine about it or you can learn, keep grinding, keep growing, and keep working.
Talk is cheap
It’s easy to say how great your idea is, how smart you are, how talented you are.
You need to show it.
Knowing when to quit
Sometimes there will be a business on Shark Tank and they’ve just had tons of issues, they haven’t made money. And it might be somewhat of a gimmicky product, not something that’s going to revolutionize the world.
And the market has said no, people aren’t buying it, in spite of all of the efforts.
Sharks have suggested people scrap their ideas before. And that can seem cold hearted.
But there does come a time to cut your losses. One of the sharks, Kevin O’Leary once brought up the point that the more time they spend working on an idea that hasn’t worked, it’s taking away time where they could be working on something more fruitful.
The wise thing isn’t always sticking with an idea or product until the bitter end.
Listen!
I’ve seen many a business undone on Shark Tank because their owner didn’t want to listen. Sharks tell them what hasn’t worked, they want to argue. Sharks give advice, they want to get defensive. Sharks tell them something they could try, they want to dismiss it.
That doesn’t come off well.
Sharks have often cited that they feel like a person would be hard to deal with when saying “I’m out.”
None of us knows all. It’s virtuous to have the humility to listen to what others have to say.
Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe!
Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.
We live in a soulmate focused society. We love the idea of finding the one.
As a millennial, perhaps it’s because our generation grew up with VHS and we were able to watch and rewatch and rewatch the same Disney movies over and over again, seeing the happily ever after. But in fairytales, we never actually see the day to day of what the “ever after” ends up looking like.
You don’t have a perfect person because YOU’RE not a perfect person. And a relationship takes two people. And since a relationship includes you, it’ll have problems. Now multiply that by two as you find someone who is also imperfect.
The problem with trying to find the right person is that it’s inherently self-centered. It implies you can find one person who completes you, who builds you up, who makes you whole.
That’s not how God designed us.
It is God who makes us whole. It is in God that we find purpose and life.
If we have the mentality that another person will be what completes us, we’re viewing the relationship as a taker. Thinking that a significant other or spouse’s sole job in life is to support you and build you up will lead to an unbalanced and unhealthy relationship. Too many relationships are made up of two takers.
But that’s what we want. Instead of looking for that person, you need to be that person. You need to be a giver, you need to want to support and honor another person.
“The doesn’t seem fair!”
But it seems fair to look for someone who’s going to do that for you?
Both people need to be focused on giving, being selfless, and serving the other. We’re imperfect and so we’ll do that imperfectly, but when people work to build that relationship, it’s a beautiful thing.
Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.
