Wedding Speech Delivery Dos and Don'ts

I’m really excited to be writing this first piece for The Wedding Community. Over the coming months I hope to help you focus on and prepare for those all important wedding speeches. Please let me know if there’s a particular subject or type of speech you’d like me to feature in future. For now I thought I’d start with some very high level dos and don’ts for those of you who have wedding speeches looming!

I hope you find them useful.

Do -

• Talk slowly. If it takes twelve minutes, not nine, it doesn’t matter at all.
• Pause for effect. Your audience need time to digest the story before they get the punch line. So give them time to get it.
• Emphasise key words. Imagine you’re telling a story without a script. You’ll say some words louder than most and change your inflection on others.
• Practise. However well written the speech, you don’t want to be ‘reading’ it. Know it well enough that it just becomes a safety net.
• Gesticulate. Body language is vital. If you’re addressing someone, look at them. Use your arms to emphasise a point.

Don’t -

• Be put off by a heckle. You can pre-prepare a couple of responses to a noisy member of the crowd.
• Give in to the shakes. Paste your speech onto card or rest it somewhere you can see it. Find out if there’s a lectern. Holding a shaky piece of paper will put you off before you get going.
• Get drunk beforehand. It may feel like the easy way to get through it, but it won’t seem so sensible afterwards.
• Just read it out. Great material is irrelevant if it’s delivered badly. You’ll be much more natural when you’re not reading straight from the page.

Lawrence

Article by Wedding Speech Writing Specialist Lawrence Berstein

Image Courtesy of Surrey Wedding Photographer Matt Pereira Photography

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