Here’s the idea…
- Welcome all the guests and get them laughing straight away
- Tell some funny anecdotes from your son’s childhood (ideally illustrating qualities that everyone will recognise in him today)
- Pay tribute to the man he is today. The good stuff, the lovely stuff, but most importantly, the funny stuff.
- Recount meeting your son’s partner for the first time and how you’ve grown to love him and his family
- You may want to offer some funny or heart-warming advice to the married couple. Nothing too profound or pompous.
- Conclude your speech with a toast to the married couple – traditionally it was to their ‘health and happiness’ but feel free to create something more meaningful to the couple
Oh, and sum up a lifetime of love in approximately six minutes.
Start by welcoming everyone and then – as quick as you can – go straight into a funny tribute to your son. Maybe it’s a story about him wetting the bed growing up? Maybe it’s a story about him wetting the bed last week? Maybe it’s not about him wetting the bed at all, which is probably best.
Alternatively, think of some personalised advice that is uniquely suitable for him, or maybe even your first thoughts when your son brought the bride home for the first time.
End it by welcoming your new daughter-in-law or son-in-law and by delivering a witty toast, which hopefully relates to the rest of the speech. ‘Here’s to the happy couple, although, son don’t have too many drinks as we know what your bladders like’.
Again, we cannot emphasise enough how it doesn’t have to be about wetting yourself.
This is the most important thing – be funny! Not in a ‘google wedding jokes’ kind of way, but authentically funny. As mentioned above, think of as many funny stories as you can and see how they all fit together. Write a story out of it. There’ll be a common theme, whether your son is clumsy, too good-natured for his own good, whatever!
Avoid any clunky jokes or cliched advice straight from the internet. Anything from the heart will always work better.
Most importantly – keep it short! Four, five minutes – perfect. Twenty minutes, no. Even if it’s all gold, remember, everyone eventually wants to get on with drinking and the longer you hold them back from that, the more they’re going to resent you.
In the run-up to the speech, prepare as much as you can. Practice it in front of a friend, learn to read slowly and to look at people. You don’t have to memorise the whole speech, but you also don’t just want to be delivering it to an A4 piece of paper.
By the time you reach the big day, you’ll have the perfect speech, will nail the delivery and probably be carried out on the shoulders of all those present (note: this doesn’t often actually happen).
But most importantly, you’ll have made your son’s big day all the more special and, hopefully, brought his ego a little down to earth with a gentle roasting.
We hope this advice has helped you but if you still feel you need a helping hand, contact us.
We’d love to help you write an amazing speech that your son will be proud of.
