So you’ve been bestowed the honour of being a best man and you’re delighted and quite possibly a little bit scared! Tonight we have ten nuggets of info to help you get through this fun, but sometimes daunting task…
1. Know your duties. Yes planning the stag do and making your speech are essential parts of your role but your duties stretch further than that. On the day you are responsible for getting the groom to the ceremony on time and sober enough to say I Do. You will be one of the main ‘managers’ on the day so brush up on the running of a wedding day and make sure you are prepared to guide everyone along.
2. Do your homework. The best man is much more than an average guest. You should know the location of the ceremony and layout of the reception and be a friend to everyone enjoying the day. You may even be the designated person looking after payment arrangements for some of the suppliers.
3. Be creative with the stag do planning. A night on the tiles with a silly costume for the groom isn’t really up to scratch anymore. Most grooms expect at least one night away and a day filled with activities. Be prepared for lots of stag do admin including booking flights, arranging payments and setting out the itinerary for the event.
4. Work on your speech weeks before the wedding. If you fail to prepare, you’ll probably be preparing to fail! A great best mans speech takes time to work on the content as well as getting in the right stories and not just the really bad (for the groom) ones.
5. Be restrained. During the speech you may want to slightly embarrass the groom – and why not, this is your chance for a laugh – but don’t go so far that you will leave not only the groom red faced, but the guests very uncomfortable. There are plenty of stories that are not wedding appropriate, know your boundaries!
6. Keep your speech simple. Unless you are a pro public speaker chances are nerves will come in to play. Having you speech simple and precise is the best route to go down. As for the length we find around 10 minutes is around just the perfect length.
7. Leave the rubbish cliches at home. It’s never good to deliver a naff joke that the guests have heard at countless other wedding days.
8. Don’t drink too much. Drinking 18 pints will not make your nerves disappear, they’ll only add to the likeliness of a major speech slip up!
9. Don’t rush. Yes you are nervous but try and deliver your speech so that the audience have time to enjoy it.
10. Be proud and thankful that you were chosen for this major role, take it as a compliment and enjoy the day.
(Image credit: eFow Creations via Etsy)
