Best Man Speech

So, I'm best man at the wedding of an old friend from school on Saturday, and I still haven't managed to write the speech.

Problem is, the guy has put barely a foot wrong in terms of providing good material for the speech. In the words of one of our mutual friends. "He's always known that something might come back to bite him on the ass on his wedding day. Maybe that's because he's lived his life with his best man's speech in mind.”

Google and YouTube throw up some pretty mediocre jokes and speeches, and I'm sure the collective wealth of experience and humour on here can do better.

So any Best Man stories, jokes, ideas or speeches would be hugely appreciated.

I have 48 hours and counting...

No suggestions on jokes, but can I gently suggest that you might look at it from the point of view: What has X done that is noteworthy, loving, honorable, kind, etc? Its his wedding day and showing him and them your love, affection and respect for the man could be a lot nicer than some ritual humiliation.

Jokes are always at someone's expense.

Maybe that's because he's lived his life with his best man's speech in mind

HA

Cheers Ben. Yes, I want to avoid it being an impersonal gag-fest and there'll be plenty of man-love in there, but at the same time I could use a few laughs!

I've got some stories for you.

I've got some stories for you.

I bet you do!

^ He ain't lyin'... Good luck, Tom... I've managed to scrape by without giving a best man's speech 'til now, I can think of few things that would terrify me more...

Brevity, good humour and inclusiveness.

I can't stand rambling over-long best man speeches about the time the groom ate three kebabs and threw up on his shirt in a nightclub in shagaloof. Sat though a few of these recently. Funny only to the handful of idiots were there.

just make some shit up tom
no one apart from you and he will ever know

just make some shit up tom
no one apart from you and he will ever know

Good idea.

So I remember the time we went to the moon.

Writing a best man speech does worry me a bit. Just think back at times you have had laughs together, don't really humiliate him in front of everyone.

Alas Dicki this is a 'big' wedding, 200+ people, so I think that will fail.

Honesty and brevity prevailing at the moment.

tom, honesty and brevity is the way to go.
slagging off is not always funny.

i was a best man for one of my very good friends, bastard only asked me for a laugh(mumbles by name, and not just here)
300+ guests in ireland
had a big row with my ex-mrs 15 mins before, because *she *wasn't sitting on the top table
tore up my planned speach.
had 3 whiskey's to steady my nerves/clam me down,
got him in a headlock, and stumbled through it.

he was happy, not seen the video yet though.....and that was 7 years ago

they have since split up :)

got him in a headlock

I've been best man four times now.
The first time for the older brother who I hate.
I made up loads of stories, and the punchline for each one was that he wasn't in them.
I then made a bit of a moral to the tales, saying what a sensible, dependable choice he was for a husband.
That kind of shit.
Of course, he just screwed his way through her friends then left her, but that's not my problem.

I was best man for my best mate.
They were Londoners and came to Yorkshire for the wedding.
THe had rather a few pre-conceived ideas of what Yorkshire folk were like.
I told a romantic tale of how they first met.
There eyes met over a crowded room... which was easy, as my mate is 6'6" and his wife is 6'2".
(you could have your mate working in a hospital, doing scans on pregnant women. He'd just realised the woman he was scanning was expecting triplets, when he looked up and saw his wife to be in a nurses outfit - there eyes met over a crowded womb. Badoom tish.)
Anyway, back to my mates wedding. Things were going well until I happened to mention that they insisted I come on the first date, because she was bringing a friend as back-up too. The friend didn't show, but they were both so nervous that they wouldn't let me leave them. I got them warmed up with light banter and lots of gin, and things went swimmingly. I said I was going home, they came with me. My house was a bomb site (major renovations, rubble on the floor) & the only habitable room was my bedroom.
I let them have my bed, on the promise that there'd be no hanky panky. I slept on the floor, under a towel.
Trying to ignore the sounds of her slobbering and slurping on my friend's notoriously gigantic cock.
I didn't put it quite like that, but people got the gist.
No-one laughed.
Tip: don't mention cock sucking in your speech.

The next wedding was another great mate. Mostly friends, and the family who were present were very broad minded.
Rude stories and quips about drunken bets with butt plugs were the order of the day.
Went down a treat.
Tip: if it's lots of mates, get rude - they'll love it and there's nothing wrong with a cheap laugh. Believe me, it's better than an expensive silence.

Then I was best man for my younger brother. He was perfect speech material. I focused on his attitude on life, easy going, laid back, stoned. Lot's of things happen to him, from strange jobs he has done (advertised a carpet warehouse by holding a banner and waving at cars while dressed as pink panther - he'd smoke spliffs inside the giant pink panther head, turning into a big pink bong. He got sacked because someone complained the he'd terrified there children by staggering around, flapping his arms at cars with smoke pouring from his pink panther eyes.)
Tip: have a bit of a running them - focus on a personality trait, like uptight, anal, laid back, outrageous, dull. Dull can be just a funny as downright mental. Build mad situations that he can be dull in - everyone will nod and laugh and say 'ha ha, that's our George, a right dull cunt!'

Comedy cards to read out are good.
It's your job to read out the cards from people who couldn't make it.
Write a load yourself, from ex girlfriends, people he owes money to, people everyone has known in the past and really not expected to hear from. They go down a storm, and fill time brilliantly.

Now get going with the speech - the sooner it's done, the sooner you can chill, and remember to write it out for someone who is panicking and liable to lose their place while reading under pressure - big writing, lots of spaces, underline key points.
Some people like to put each gag on a separate card. It might help.

Good Luck!

As long as you don't do this, you'll be fine (as told by a cyclist I met on the internet):

Last August one of my mates got married and he chose me to be the best man. I didn't mind and thought it would be a bit of a laugh. I actually had known the bride for a lot longer as she used to go out with one of my mates from school.

Anyway – I wasn't worried about the speech, I'm a funny guy, I wrongly thought to myself, I'll think of something.

With about two weeks to go to the big day I started to think of what to write. I'd only known the groom for a couple of years, we had met in France when we were both racing there.

I tried to think of something amusing that had happened that I could use as the main points of my speech. I struggled a bit, the groom didn't do too many crazy things.

Two things stuck in my mind. One day the groom had said to me, out of the blue, I'd like to see a blonde girl shagged by a horse. The other thing he said was that he first got an erection while climbing a gym rope at school.

A blonde shagged by a horse. That's very specific, I thought. It'll be hilarious to retell that tale.

By the time the wedding neared the story about how he'd like to see a blonde girl shagged by a horse had become embellished to involve an elaborate harness that gets strapped under a horse and that a lady gets into.

Funny eh?

So I wrote out this speech and felt it was lacking something. It needed a tape recording of the groom and some girl playing around with a horse that was supposed to have been recorded the night before the wedding. I got my best mate around the week before and we made a recording on this here computer.

A few things about the groom. He snored really strangely, like he was being strangled. He was from Bristol so he talked like a bumpkin and he worked in a car park.

So this recording we made started of with the sound of him snoring and saying things in his sleep, things related to horses and parking tickets. Then you hear a door open and a girl's voice asking the groom if she can get into bed with him. Then you hear them starting to get it on even though the groom is protesting. You then hear the groom talking about this harness he had invented and asking the girl if she would like to try it out. The girl protests but then agrees. You hear a clearly distressed horse and the girl shout 'Ahhhh, my poor fanny.'

We made it with proper sound effects from the internet. I still have it on my computer.

So this recording was put onto a CD and it was to be the finale of my magnificent speech. All week prior to the wedding my girlfriend was saying 'You can't play that.' The guy who had helped me write it was to be head usher and he reassured me. 'Of course you can, I'll laugh anyway.'

I was thinking to myself 'How bad could it be?' you know, when you worry about something it's never as bad as you fear.

The day of the wedding came and we started drinking early in the morning. The wedding happened and we went to the hotel for the reception. I still wasn't really nervous.

Going into the meal everybody that was involved in the wedding had to do a line up and talk to all the guests as they entered the dining room. It was here I started to get worried. I didn't know anybody, nor did the groom. It was mainly the bride's old relatives from Scotland.

I'd sort of thought that all the guests would be young and friendly.

So we sat down for the meal. I was warned by the bride's mum not to say anything bad. She meant anything bad about the bride and her previous boyfriend, my other mate. I had nothing written about that so I felt okay.

I was asked by the Maid of Honour to introduce her after my speech as she would like to say something. 'No problem' I said.

The speech was to take place after the meal but my appetite had vanished and instead I just drank and became more nervous and drunk. By the time the meal finished I was very drunk indeed.

All of a sudden I'm being introduced. I got to my feet and I'd forgotten everything I was going to say. I had to search for the speech in my suit jacket.

I knew how I wanted the speech to go. I was going to allude to the bit about the horse but not say it outright. I didn't want to offend anybody.

I was too drunk though.

I think the first thing I said was 'Sam said to me he'd like to see a girl shagged by a horse.'

silence

'It's not supposed to be like this', I was thinking.

'Shut up and sit down.' said the bride's mother.

I was backed into a corner and I was getting angry for some reason.

I turned to the groom. 'You fucking did.' I told him.

I then turned to the audience 'He fucking did.' I slurred.

A few more people were telling me to sit down.

'Fuck off' was the only reply I could think of.

I saw my girlfriend stand up and walk out. I slurred some other stuff, god knows what and eventually played the CD we had made.

There may have been a snigger at the 'Ahh my poor fanny' bit.

I was annoyed. I turned to the Maid of honour and said 'Top that if you can' and collapsed onto my chair.

The usher who had promised to laugh hadn't.

My girlfriend had walked out of the speech because she was too embarrassed for me. The photographer, not knowing who she was had said. 'I've been doing weddings for 20 years and that was the worst speech I have ever heard.'

Later the bride's mother had come up to my girlfriend and said 'I'm going to find out where you are getting married and ruin it.'

I soldiered on through the rest of the day, everybody there did their best not to make eye contact wih me, but it still haunts me.

The bride's Scottish grandad took me aside in the evening. I thought he was going to kill me. 'I really enjoyed your speech' the deaf old goat said. So, this was a year ago. I haven't spoke to the bride since although me and the groom are friends again.

The usher, who is my best mate, is getting married in October and asked me to be the best man. You should see how nervous his girlfriend is and her dad has gone on record saying he will kill me if I pull any stunts.

"a cyclist I met on the internet"

orly?

Absolute gold!

I made a best man speech once.

Referred to my best mates missus as "my arch nemesis" as we have a very love/hate relationship... great girl. Anyway, everyone thought she was my nemesis as I wanted my mate as my gay lover. That was fucked.

Then I started to talk about her and say nice things, being a good bloke and stuff. I said "...And the wonderful X, who led me astray so horribly last weekend, the new wife of my mate...". I was referring to a massive bender we all went on the weekend before where she was leading the charge dispensing booze and chems. Anyway, everyone thought I meant that we shagged.

Fucking great speech.

Sounds like the best man is usually the one to emerge most embarassed from the occasion.

Great stuff Murts, Lucifer, Regal, Balki et al. Keep 'em coming!

Tip: have a bit of a running them - focus on a personality trait, like uptight, anal, laid back, outrageous, dull. Dull can be just a funny as downright mental. Build mad situations that he can be dull in - everyone will nod and laugh and say 'ha ha, that's our George, a right dull cunt!'

This is great advice. I couldn't make it to the stag do now that I live in Amsterdam, so the groom came over here a few weeks ago for a suppoedly debauched weekend, in lieu of the one I missed in London. I took him out to the red light district, tried to get him as messed up as possible in the hope that he would make up for years of the straight and narrow. But it was not to be. In the end we settled on the science museum and a stoned game of pool.

Just make up a load of shit about him boning farm animals and trying to shoot heroin in uni but accidentally using Bisto.

I've only done one best man speech to be fair. I spent a while highlighting the groom's legendary appetite, asking for guesses from the assembled as the to exact nature various feats acts of gluttony i'd seen him perform over the years. I distributed mars bars as prizes. it was sort of a best man pub quiz.

Brevity, good humour and inclusiveness.

I can't stand rambling over-long best man speeches about the time the groom ate three kebabs and threw up on his shirt in a nightclub in shagaloof. Sat though a few of these recently. Funny only to the handful of idiots were there.

This is the answer.

Speak from the heart, Tomasito... cant go wrong.

Basically, it is a fucking great honour to have the chance to talk about your best mate and his new wife in front of all their family and friends. I knew it, and I said so.

I also referred to her as the following at various stages:

the hand brake
the anchor
the wet blanket
the ball and chain
she who must be obeyed

To be fair, she copped it more than he did! But she's wicked and one of my best mates too so it was all good.

Just make up a load of shit about him boning farm animals and trying to shoot heroin in uni but accidentally using Bisto.

Actually... this is the answer.

one of my best buddies was asked by some very good friends of ours, to be the best man, he is the funniest fncker i have ever met.
the speech was great, he was nervous, but still really funny, no one was upset until....
his last words were
"right i want one last go on your wife"
went over to her, pushed her face down over the table, and pretended to hump her
now, 90% of all the people there were really good friends who knew him
except her father........... he took off his wooden leg and was literally hopping mad chasing him around the venue for half an hour until his daughter managed to calm him down.