WHAT IF I DON’T KNOW THE GROOM’S PARTNER?
If you’ve barely met them – this is true more often than you’d think – you can make a joke about it. Just a cheeky ‘He’s been keeping you locked up’ or ‘I’ve always wanted to meet the person who can beat Dave on Mario kart’ will suffice.
WHAT IF I DON’T LIKE MY FRIEND’S PARTNER?
Look, in an ideal world, every day would be like a Friends episode, but occasionally there’s that one personality that doesn’t align with ours – think Janice – and they also happen to have laid claim to our best mate forever more. It doesn’t help if you feel you’ve made the effort but they’ve been colder than a penguin’s bumhole in return.
No point sitting there, pencil and notebook in hand, thinking Oh. My. God.
Your friendship is bigger than your pride. So swallow it. Just crack on and say something – anything – positive about the person your friend is promising to spend the rest of his life with. If you’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel, just say ‘I know Nick thinks the absolute world of you because you’re the only person in the world he’d ever give up fantasy football night for.’
Try not to sound too bitter about it.
WHAT IF MY FRIEND’S PARTNER DOESN’T LIKE ME?
Sometimes we do meet those rare people who don’t appreciate waking up to the smell of leftover kebab in their Honda Civic, or for some reason don’t get our *jokes* about different types of poo. And in an increasingly polarised political world, people’s outlooks on life can genuinely jar quite considerably.
The key here is to bond over the universal. If there are things you love or find odd or funny about your best mate, chances are his spouse has noticed them too, and will be able to appreciate you pointing them out in your speech, even while scowling at you just a little.