If you’re looking to find the perfect quote to pop in your Maid of Honour speech, look no further! The Speechy Team have curated our favourite Maid of Honour-friendly quotes about love, friendship and marriage.
You don’t have to compare thee to a summer’s day or go for the old clichés. Why choose Shakespeare when Drake might do just as well?
Whether it’s sentiment or comedy lines you’re after, here’s our guide to the very best Maid of Honour quotes to super-charge into your wedding speech.
Before we begin, a word of warning…Great quotes shouldn’t make you lazy. Use the quotes as an addition to what you want to say, rather than a substitute for your own words.
Write your speech first, then see if a quote or two can make it better.
1 – Make the quotes meaningful
Think about the songs & the films that mean something to you both or the couple themselves. Do any of these lend themselves to a great quote?
2 – Don’t overload your speech with quotes
Two maximum as a general rule. One at the top and one towards the end.
3 – Quote recognisable names (or at least provide some context)
It’s always good to quote people that you’ve actually have heard of (or at least respect after you’ve looked them up on Wikipedia). You’ll find there are loads of great quotes by people you’ve never heard of, but do you really want to qualify them by saying they were written by a ‘relationship consultant’?
4 – Add a back ref
Put the quote into a personal context, or make it even more humorous with a suitable ‘ad lib’.
5 – Get expert advice
Check out our Maid of Honour Speech Advice for the full low down on how to package your quotes up in a great speech.
Or, if you’re looking for our quotes, check out some of the articles the Speechy team has featured in – including The New York Times and The Guardian.
Despite universally being acknowledged as ‘pretty good’, love can be a hard thing to sum up.
And when it’s someone’s special day, you want to do the happy couple’s love and happiness justice, as there’ll inevitably be a point in the speech where you have to pay tribute to them,
A well-chosen quote saves dozens of wasted words and hours of stress – so utilise them! (And credit the author).
"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is to love and be loved in return." Natalie Cole
That’s a quote by Natalie Cole, the American singer and actress. It’s a nice, sweet one which also offers a bit of advice. And as the Maid of Honour, you’re in a position to give as much advice as you want (even if you don’t always follow it yourself).
Other good pieces of advice to offer a married couple include…
"To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the wedding cup, whenever you’re wrong, admit it; whenever you’re right, shut up." Ogden Nash
Nash was a poet known for his light verse, but we think he makes a good point. Whether it’s forgetting to take the bins out, or being snappier than a crocodile sandwich after a long day at work, many a row can be diffused by holding up a hand and confessing to being in the wrong. At the same time, no marriage was ever made better by one person being a serial gloater.
Others see a good marriage as an asset…
"The more you invest in a marriage, the more valuable it becomes." Amy Grant
She might be known as the ‘Queen of Christian Pop’, but Amy Grant sure knows the economics of a successful marriage.
Alternatively, you could go down the philosophical route to look both thoughtful AND super well-read. Here’s one we like…
"There is no remedy for love but to love more." Henry David Thoreau
Deep. And then to really hammer home how much people’s differences complement each other, which is basically the WHOLE POINT of marriage, here’s a good quote by Todd Ruthman…
"It is the things in common that make relationships enjoyable, but it is the little differences that make them interesting." Todd Ruthman
You may feel obliged to include a lot of quotes relevant to the bride and groom as it is technically their big day.
But remember! There’s another couple who are JUST as important to pay tribute to – yourself and the bride!
The Maid of Honour speech is basically a seven-minute talk where at least five minutes are dedicated to you telling the bride how amazing she is. So you’re going to need some quotes that show everyone just how awesome your friendship is.
There are some great literary quotes we like, for example…
That’s taken from Sarah Dessen’s young adult novel, What Happened to Goodbye?
But there are plenty of others. From GCSE syllabus…
"I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why." John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men
To modern must-haves…
"I looked at them. And I think they knew. Not anything specific really. They just knew. And I think that's all you can ever ask from a friend." Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
It doesn’t have to be bookish. Enjoy your weekly bottomless brunches? There’s a quote for that!
"People who love to eat are always the best people." Julia Child, American TV chef
Or you could go full philosophical and get to the very meaning of WHAT a friend is, like the novelist Edith Wharton does.
"There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one's self, the very meaning of one's soul." Edith Wharton
This one could even be used to talk about marriage!
All of these will have the bride blubbing. But if you want to get her laughing…
Let’s be honest; most of us don’t read philosophy or poetry these days. Instead, we spend our time in front of the TV or Netflix. But there’s plenty of wisdom to be found there.
If you want to raise a laugh, go to the best comedians and comedies. After 30 seasons, The Simpsons has hundreds of funny one-liners about marriage, but this Homer Simpson-ism is our favourite.
'When a woman says nothing's wrong - everything's wrong. When a woman says everything's wrong, EVERYTHING'S wrong'. Homer Simpson
Then there’s US comic Rita Rudner’s oft-quoted one-liner.
'I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.' Rita Rudner
Is the bride more into romcoms? This line from Letters to Juliet will go down a treat.
"Husbands are like wine; they take a long time to mature." Letters to Juliet
And if the happy couple are happy to laugh at themselves a little, you could use this quote from Wayne’s World.
'Marriage is punishment for shoplifting in some countries' Wayne's World
Or this from another Mike Myers film, So I Married An Axe Murderer.
Mike Myers really doesn’t like marriage does he?
If none of these fit you and the bride’s relationship, boom, here’s the nuclear option. Plato was pretty wise, but he has nothing on Drake. Fit in a Drizzy lyric, such as:
'I live for the nights I can't remember, with the people that I won't forget.' Drake
If they’re more of a head-banger, perhaps a lyric from Queen’s ‘You’re My Best Friend’ will go down well.
Or, and this really is a last resort, how about Ja Rule?
"You know that my heart gon' cry if you leave me lonely. 'Cuz you not just my love, you my homie." Ja Rule
If that doesn’t sum up a Maid of Honour-bride relationship, we don’t know what does.
Shakespeare couldn’t have put it any better than that, J.
The Speechy team do more than hunt down cool quotes.
We’re a team of TV scriptwriters by trade and have written for shows such Have I Got News For You, Dead Ringers and Horrible Histories.
These days we team up to help people around the world craft amazing wedding speeches. We’re rated ‘excellent’ on Trustpilot and here are some of the ways we can help you…
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