Sentimental Wedding Speech from the Father of the Bride
This speech uses quotes that are skillfully woven into his more personal message, which is a good way of adding humor and providing the speaker with material that is neither offensive or dull. He also includes several jokes that are popular in wedding speeches, but has given his own twist on them to add originality
Ladies and gentlemen, may I start my speech by welcoming the guests. Today, we are surrounded by most of the friends and family that have been important to us during our lives. Some have traveled thousands of miles, just to be here today. We welcome you all and thank you sincerely for sharing this special day with us.
As about half of you will know, this is my second father of the bride speech. To misquote Oscar Wilde from 'The Importance of Being Ernest:
“To lose one daughter may be considered unlucky. to lose two is careless!” Well. I guess that's O.K. because my being careless is how they came to be here in the first place.
Making the father of the bride speech, I feel a bit like a Sheik walking into his harem for the first time. I know what I've got to do, I just don't know where to start. You will all be pleased to learn that my speech will be every bit as good as last time. In fact, my side of the family will probably remember great chunks of it. Not really, although I am following exactly the same format. This means it will probably start off badly, sag in the middle with long silences, and then trail off into a lot of incoherent rambling.
To be honest, I did try to memorize this speech, but forgive me if I resort to my notes every five seconds. I asked for an autocue to be set up in front of me. Apparently, the wedding budget doesn't str...
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...qually as long -and I haven't quite finished yet because my next toast is to the bride and groom. That reminds me of the wedding I once went to where the two of the guests were a minister and a priest. When the priest was offered a drink for the toast he said “I’l1 have a large whisky please." When the minister was offered the same, he said "No thanks. I'd rather go with a scarlet woman than touch the demon alcohol." The priest promptly put his whisky back on the tray and said “I didn't know there was a choice.”
Now I don't want to offend anybody, so if theres a priest or a minister present, I apologize. And if there's a scarlet woman here, I’11 meet you in the bar in ten minutes.
Thank you for your indulgence. Without further delay I'l1 ask you to join me in a toast to my beautiful daughter, the bride, and her handsome husband, the groom. The bride and groom.
Second, the groom visits the bride’s parents at their house to talk with her parents about the marriage. The parents question the groom to see if he actually loves their daughter. The groom clarifies to the bride’s parents he meet their daughter and fell in love with her. The groom also says he knows their daughter like a recipe. In the end of the visit, the parents tell him to come back in a week.
Levant, Howard. The Novels of John Steinbeck: a Critical Study. Columbia: U of Missouri Press, 1974.
Steinbeck has become one of my favorite writers -- for the love he has for his characters, the loveliness of his language, and the clear-eyed conviction with which he writes. Originally, I failed to see the beauty in Steinbeck's people, though it is plainly there. Perhaps I hadn't seen enough of the world myself, yet. There was a lot I didn't understand about people.
Rascoe, Burton. "John Steinbeck," in Steinbeck and His Critics: A Record of Twenty-Five Years, edited by E. W. Tedlock, Jr. and C. V. Wicker, University of New Mexico Press, 1957, pp. 57-67, in Contemporary Literary Criticism Vol. 75, edited by Thomas Votteler, Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1993, pp. 336-339.
Rascoe, Burton. "John Steinbeck," in Steinbeck and His Critics: A Record of Twenty-Five Years, edited by E. W. Tedlock, Jr. and C. V. Wicker, University of New Mexico Press, 1957, pp. 57-67, in Contemporary Literary Criticism Vol. 75, edited by Thomas Votteler, Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1993, pp. 336-339.
For those of you that don’t know, I am Trey Rongisch and I am currently a student at Midland University. It is quite ironic how Nick and I first met, it was during my first college class. I would have never expected him to ask me to be his Best Man at his wedding in the short span of four months, but when he asked me, I just couldn’t turn down the offer. But I’m going to be honest, I’ve been feeling quite nervous about giving this speech for some time. But I’m pleased to say last night I slept like a baby – I woke up every two hours, crying my eyes out. With this in mind, I am ready to get this speech going and I must share how honored I am to be here today and speak on behalf of Nick and his beautiful wife, Katie.
John Steinbeck, a California Native born in the early twentieth century, was a renowned author of many famous novels, including The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, and The Pearl. The three novels show that Steinbeck was not afraid to write about real issues even if he would be placed on a banned book list. He knew what was important to society and so did his wife, Carol Steinbeck, who acted as fuel to the fire when he wrote politically. She was so invested in his writings that she became his editor when he wrote his novels, often having him remove Latina phrases. He eventually divorces Carol to marry his second wife Gwyndolyn then later divorces and marries Elaine Scott with whom he stayed with for the rest of his life (Shillinglaw).
It is customary for the best man to retell an embarrassing tale or two from the bridegroom’s past. As Gary’s oldest friend, this part of the speech fell to me. However, I had two problems with this. Firstly, Gary originally insisted on vetting the speech, which would have meant me going to the trouble of preparing two speeches. Luckily, he relented. Secondly, Gary is the original Mr. Nice Guy and it's very difficult to think of anything bad to say about him. So, back to you Steve!
Words are dangerous, words travel into the very heart of a person and change how they look at the world. When presenting to a group of people, using normal conversational words will not be enough. In history there has been many great speeches; two great ones were given by John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. President Kennedy's Inaugural Address and Mr. King's “I Have a Dream” have multiple similarities and differences. The similarities are a passion for what they say, how they address a problem they face, and how they use figurative language. A difference is the reasoning for delivering their speeches.
Eidenmuller, Michael E. Great Speeches for Better Speaking: Listen and Learn From America’s Most Memorable Speeches. New York: Mcgraw Hill, 2008. Google Books. Web. 4 September 2010.
be here with us today. For those of you who don't know me, I have been a friend of the groom's for seven years. He has many special friends, and haying the privilege of being chosen as his best man, from such esteemed company, is an honor the likes of which I have never had bestowed upon me.
Now I was a bit unsure about the duties of a best man, although I told Brian very early on that there was no way I was going to get off with a bridesmaid – I say that with no offence intended to Claire and Nicola who I’m sure you’ll all agree look lovely, and have done a great job today. So to find out what was expected of me, I turned to the internet and managed to find some really interesting stuff… but then remembered what I had gone onto it for in the first place, and set about plagiarising other people’s speeches from all the wedding sites I could find. So I accept no responsibility if this end result is rubbish. I know many of you will have been to a few weddings in your time, so can I suggest that you entertain yourselves quietly by playing wedding bingo – every time you hear a witty comment in my speech that you have already heard at another wedding, give yourself a point and the first one to five wins a piece of wedding cake.
John Steinbeck, a 20th century novelist, was the recipient of numerous awards including the Nobel Prize. Steinbeck, a conservative that valued the old America, could produce pages of beauty followed by pages of sheer trash writing using specific characteristics, which his work is characterized by. John Steinbeck’s work is characterized by symbolism and allegory, which can be seen in his novels The Pearl, The Grapes of Wrath, and his short story “Flight.”
Finally, on behalf of the bride and groom I would like to thank everyone for sharing their special day, it is a true millstone - sorry milestone in their lives. On behalf of myself I wish you'd all stayed at home - as things would have been a lot easier on me. I started planning this speech about 5 months ago and I expect you all feel like I've been delivering it equally as long. But now it gives me immense pleasure (not to mention relief) to invite you to all stand and raise your glasses in a toast to John and Angie. To love, laughter and happily ever after. To John and Angie CONGRATULATIONS
After having done all the hand-over to Araniti, he called me and told me to prepare a short speech, that he would deliver at the cocktail party organized in the reunion hall to honor him as he left his post .He told me where I had to concentrate and added: