Best Men
Best Man wedding speeches are, 99.999% of the time, the most embarrassing part of any wedding. And weddings are embarrassing in general. Any event where your 56-year-old Aunt Helen is doing the Electric Slide is not a party anyone wants to attend. But the Best Man speeches, oh, they are the worst.
Most people fear public speaking and, hence, are extraordinarily bad at it. It’s worse in the south, where I’m from. A guy decides to get married and picks his friend who drives a truck for a living to be Best Man and make a speech. Good call! Pick the guy who is isolated in the cab of an 18-wheeler for 36-hour-long stretches of time. He has absolutely no human contact. Let him talk to a crowd. He’s used to talking to himself so how much harder can this be?
True story, this was the beginning of a Best Man speech I heard one time:
“Uhhh, you know Tim and I been through a lot of shit together…”
You’ve been through a lot shit?? The entire family was there. The bride’s grandma was there. Did the word shit really need to be in the first line? This is supposed to be a happy day, a nice time. Number one guideline for this speech: let’s not mention shit, or poop, or pee, or semen or period blood or any of the body’s amazing fluids in any of the many ways in which those words can be used.
At some of the weddings I’ve been at, the Best Man will tell a racy anecdote. Often these anecdotes are not so much funny as they are incredibly disturbing. The Best Man will tell a story about how he and the groom went to get prostitutes one time but then the groom chickened out so they went to the strip club instead and then both got a lap dance from a stripper named Ginger.
Here’s another guideline for a wedding speech: It’s really not the time to confess your darkest secrets. If you’ve had sex with prostitutes or have a pornography addiction or you’ve gotten tweaked out on heroin or murdered a hobo in a hit-and-run you might want to just keep that bottled up inside and never tell anyone, let alone the combined gathering of all of your friends and family. Your wedding speech should not be the number one reason your friend gets divorced six months later.
Another another problem I have with most of these speeches: Often, the Best Man doesn’t seem to know the bride at all. And you can always tell during the toast. Because the Best Man will go on and on and on about the groom, the times they’ve had together and the crazy SHIT they’ve done and how his buddy the groom is the best guy in the world. Then, towards the end of the speech, the Best Man will kinda glance at the woman in the gigantic ornate white gown sitting beside his buddy, as if he doesn’t know how she got there, and he’ll add, almost as an afterthought, “Oh, and I’m sure he and Kaitlin are gonna be happy.” The End.
What? That’s it? You don’t have any anecdotes about Kaitlin? You can’t give her a compliment or two that comes from the heart? She’s the BRIDE for chrissake! You’ve never exchanged three sentences with her, have you?
This is so sad and lame. This is the groom’s fault really. Groom, you’re telling me that one of these people is your best guy friend in the entire world and the other is the woman you love so much you’re going to spend the rest of your life with her and they don’t really know each other? Oh, then this marriage should work out perfectly. Because what’s really good for a marriage is when you split your married life with your wife and your social life with your friends into two separate worlds that don’t have contact with one another. Marriage isn’t about sharing. It’s about separation. Well, that’s what your marriage will be about very soon, anyway.
But getting back to the Best Man, if you’re the Best Man this is, most likely, the ONE day in the groom’s life where people will fete him and toast him and congratulate him and treat him with respect. That’s why people have weddings! So they can have one day in their life where everybody they know treats them with respect. Getting married is the BEST thing most people do in their entire life.
So just make the speech respectful. If you’re not someone who is used to talking in front of crowds your speech should look something like this:
1) Thank everyone for coming
2) Thank the Bride & Groom for having a big party
3) Thank the Groom for being a good friend
4) Say that the Bride looks beautiful (even if she doesn’t) and thank her for being a good friend.
5) Thank the universe (God, Buddha, whoever) for bringing them together.
6) then just say Thank you again to everyone and get the hell off of the microphone.
Notice the pattern there? Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
People will think you’re the greatest speechmaker in the world. They’ll act like you’re frickin’ Winston Churchill. The old people in the audience will cry tears of joy. I swear if you make a speech like that everyone will love you. Why? Because nobody ever does that! Nobody ever just gets up there and respectfully thanks everyone for all the good they’ve brought into their life. Nobody ever does that! Instead they try to be hilarious or poetic or cool or daring. Screw all that horse-shit. Just be nice! Be respectful!
Maybe I’m just sour grapes that nobody has ever asked me to make a speech at their wedding. I mean, they really should. I’m a trained orator. I graduated from the University of Memphis theater department! I’ve been on TBS!
Look, if you’re reading this and you’re about to get married and you’re picking a Best Man you’re going to want to ask me to fill that role for you. All that stuff I wrote above makes a lot of sense doesn’t it? It sure does. Ask me and I’ll be happy to be your Best Man. I’ll even rent my own tux and we can just add that onto the bill. I’ll charge only $2000.00+ expenses to Best Man your wedding. $3000.00+expenses if I’m also in charge of the Bachelor Party. But that party will ROCK, dude. I know this stripper named Ginger…
