Well, my mate has confirmed something I'd hitherto only suspected... I'm THE Best Man.

Or atleast, I am to be on one day at the beginning of April.

I suppose this is a great honour.... in actual fact I'm bloody cacking myself!

My girlfriend is to be a bridemaid.

I have enough trouble organising myself and getting to places on time- let alone getting a Groom and a ring to the right place at the right time!

Organising a stag do is doing my head in... anyone got any good suggestions?**

And as for writing the speech... I'm paralytic with fear!


Anyone got any thoughts or suggestions?

**As regards Stag do; UK based, 'activity day' type thing seems to be what he wants.

As regards the speech, "embarass the groom, not the bride's mother" I already know along with don't be crude and don't go on for too long.
I probably won't mention I already know what the bride's like in bed either!!!


Gulp!!!!!




Cheers,
James

paintballing/karting/off roading something like that, then into town after for drinking and titty bars

I did it, was nervous as chuff until I stood up for the speech (I've never spoken in public before) but it went brilliantly. Don't forget, the drink will be flowing

You'll end up enjoying it I reckon

I finished my speech the night before in the B&B

http://www.chillisauce.co.uk/

regarding a speech, if your a funny chap in general do a funny speech, if not do the usual thanks yous etc etc and dont try to do anything funny as it always fails.

regarding stag do, a daytime do it somewhere that dosnt sell booze as you dont want to be doing that untill the evening, i've seen so many stag nights spoilt by to much booze.

so karting for the day followed by tieing the groom to a chair and push him around town in ladies undies and make up works quite well.

regarding a stripper, dont do it as it can cause so much trouble later on when wife finds the pics as everyone has camera phones now and someone will show her

insted get a fat a gram, a big fat bird that will come in a sing a song and have a laugh.

just my 2p worth

I absolutely hate public speaking, even though its a big part of my job!

The best advice I was given for wedding speeches was to remember the simple fact, that for those few minutes everyone in the room will be interested in and will want to hear what you have to say!

Just don't mention the brides 'special moves'!

It's an Honuor and a Nightmare all rolled into one. I've done it twice and on both occassions was cacking myself before hand about the speech but after the event I genuinely felt like the "Best Man". The 1st one I did the Groom and Bride's Father wanted the speeches out of theway before the meals as they were more nervous than me...hence very little Alcohol before the main event.......ME!!! Not so much fun. The second time was after the Meals, plenty of alcohol had flowed as did the banter from the guests which helps immensely. Great fun although if I could offer one tip.....have a couple of drinks to loosen you up but don't have too many...there's plenty of time after to catch up!
Good luck...you'll enjoy it!!

I got married last saturday - woo!

We can all say don't worry about the speech, but fact is you probably will until you start it. The revelation comes almost as soon as you start - the first cheers/laughs make you realise you couldn't possibly have a less hostile crowd. They're all on your side and will want you to succeed. So in the end, my best man and I - two of the least confident public speakers in the world - both thoroughly enjoyed giving our speeches. I wrote mine the night before in my head as I'd had literally no time to look at it before for various reasons, so was dreading it until I started it and had the revelation as above! But then my speech was easy - a list of thanks really. Best man's is more difficult and mine had been working on the content for a while. He has a stammer which he can usually overcome but was overall probably dreading it much more than me!

In the end he did a fantastic job and a few hicups and stumbles simply doesn't matter - this isn't a technical/sales presentation to directors/clients at work. As well as embarassing me pretty well (it wasn't hard) he mixed in plenty of warm heartfelt comments about our friendship that went down really well - a great balance of content.

As for the stag do it was go karting - booked a track for ourselves for a mini GP type thing, then curry and club with me forced to dress as a fairy (a very hairy fairy unfortunately). I thought I looked pretty hot, but the evidence on facebook appears to show otherwise. Best stag do (that wasn't my own) I ever went to activity-wise had karting in the morning followed by clay pigeon shooting in the afternoon! Cars and guns - perfect! Was a bit pricey though and may be hard to get the commitment you need (i.e. deposits) in these economic times.

Best of luck - you might not think it now but the wedding will likely turn out to be one of your most enjoyable days.

Liam

quote:

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Originally posted by blakep82
titty bars

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just stand up and say:

"i heard the best mans speech should last no longer than the groom making love"

and sit back down! a classic start to speech and not too crude.

quote:

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Originally posted by daniel mason
just stand up and say:

"i heard the best mans speech should last no longer than the groom making love"

and sit back down! a classic start to speech and not too crude.

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i have done it once at my brothers wedding, i 'd finished writing the speech a couple of mins before but it went like a dream. I would say its better if everyone has had a couple of vinos and if you can round in a few buddys to heckle/join/ in physical humour all the better.

Whatever you do, make sure no-one uses the line "This isn't the first time today I've got up off a warm seat with a piece of paper in my hand" - I think I've heard that at least 5 times in the last 2 years!!

In terms of "activities", paintballs a usual favourite getting the stag to do the old "stag run" and all that, only thing is some places make the best man do it too!! I went on my brother in laws and the best man was a pr1ck so me and my old man bought an extra 200 paintballs just for the stag run.

If there's one near you I can recommend Go-Ape, me and the missus did it recently but I can imagine it would be a good laugh on a stag do.

[Edited on 12/10/09 by eznfrank]

quote:

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Originally posted by liam.mccaffrey

quote:

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Originally posted by blakep82
titty bars

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rofl, i've only heard them called this in the states

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I've done it a couple of times now (for my brother and for my best mate), and I was dead worried about the speech for months before the wedding. However, both times they seemed to go down really well, loads of people came up and congratulated me after, so must have done something right.

I think one of the things you have to try and get into your head is that it's not like being a stand up comedian with a potentially hostile crowd; you have friends and familly with a few drinks and big dinner in them in them who are generally the easiest crowd to please. Getting a laugh out of them is easy, it only takes a pretty feeble joke.

Try and spread the abuse around as well, give the groom a hard time but also give the bride and familly a gentle ribbing, and a bit of self deprecation never hurt. One of the oldies that went down well in my brothers wedding was:

"A few months ago <brides name> mentioned that she'd hired these suits for a ridiculous figure. Looking in the mirror this morning I can see what she meant"

Another thing I did was check the grooms birthday and see if anything significant happened that you can link to...e.g. in my brothers case it was the start of the 70's energy crisis, which was ironic since his digestive system was capable for producing as much gas as the average north sea oil field...

Prague, Dublin or Amsterdam if you want a traditional drinking stag night.
Otherwise stick to the events the groom and you enjoy most.

Note there will always be someone who says they are coming and then pulls out at the last minute and then tries to avoid paying their share. Get cash a long way up front if you are organising the tickets else you'll get lumbered with the additional cost.

Just don't sleep with the bride to be the night before the wedding. That made for one very interesting wedding that I went to. Especially when it came to the Groom's speech, short and to the point, best man and bride thought he didn't know. OOOOOPPPPS. Brides family were very embarassed to say the least.



PS. It was not me. Groom OR Best man. Just a guest to the fireworks at the reception.

[Edited on 12/10/09 by jollygreengiant]

I was given two clear instructions by the bride to be on the night before the wedding.

1) DONT take him for a curry
2) DONT get him drunk

You can guess the rest... However the shopping trolley race was fun

One piece of advice, a potato stuck up the exhaust does not stop a car from starting, it merely shoots a bridesmaid in the leg

quote:

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Originally posted by jollygreengiant
Just don't sleep with the bride to be the night before the wedding. That made for one very interesting wedding that I went to. Especially when it came to the Groom's speech, short and to the point, best man and bride thought he didn't know. OOOOOPPPPS. Brides family were very embarassed to say the least.



PS. It was not me. Groom OR Best man. Just a guest to the fireworks at the reception.

[Edited on 12/10/09 by jollygreengiant]

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The best man at my son's wedding earlier this year did a splendid wind-up... spoke for a little while, all the usual stuff, then suggested that it was only right that all the girls my son once knew gave back their house keys, seeing as he's now getting married... at that point about 20 of the prettiest girls in the reception stood up, walked over, put a key on the table and gave him a kiss on the cheek. This was funny enough, but at the end one of his best mates also stood up, walked over, put a key down and gave him a kiss!

Got a round of applause...

Serious tip - put your speech in the pocket the other side of the flower.

Mates speech got ruined when the water bit for the flower leaked. He covered it well but had to wing about 60% of the speech.

Spend the next few months listening to comments about the groom and writing them down - should give you plenty of material.

Do not read out every card that has been given .... someone did that and we had 20 minutes of "uncle bob and family are sorry they can't make it and wish you the best. uncle jack and family are sorry" .... etc.

That has just reminded me of a trick I used for my grooms speech, discrete a copy of your speech with the brides mother, and carry two on you, I can guarantee you won't need any of the spares, but its one less thing you need to worry about!

as said, link back to things that happened on the bride and grooms birthdays,

I got enormous laughs (unexpected) by pointing out that my brothers birthday is made all the more special because he shares it with Nicola from Girls Aloud and some crack about the number 1 song when he was born