Toast To The Bride

Need a wedding speech now?

If you are up against a deadline and need a speech now, or if you just want a really easy way to prepare a great speech without a lot hassle, there is an easy solution. And it can be in your hands in a matter of minutes.

There is a company that publishes a whole line of great downloadable wedding speech books appropriate for anyone in the wedding party. Save yourself time and embarrassment by just buying one of these inexpensive little books. An hour from now your speech will be done.

Click on the book pictured in the right column of my blog and you’ll be taken to the site where you pick the book you need for the perfect wedding speech or toast to the bride.

Toast to the Bride – Give a Good One

I’m always amazed at how much the speeches and toasts at a wedding set the tone of the event and largely determine how many smiles you see the rest of the reception. A few weak, rambling, half-hearted comments and everyone feels embarrassed and subdued afterward. Some strong, sincere, heart-felt comments with a touch of humor and everyone is grinning from ear to ear. The difference is making your speeches part of your wedding planning.

If you are going to be giving a toast to the bride or other wedding speech then learn how to do it well. It isn’t hard.

Some popular wedding toasts

Here are some simple, traditional toasts that are often offered at wedding receptions:

• To the bride and groom. May you know nothing but happiness from this day forward.
• May your love be modern enough to survive the times and old fashioned enough to last forever.
• May you be friends to each other as only lovers can; and may you love each other as only best friends can.
• When children find true love, parents find joy. Here’s to your joy and ours, from this day forward.

As you can see a simple, sincere, and possibly slightly corny statement always makes a great toast.

What is the Toast to the Bride?

If you have attended a few wedding you know that the speeches and toasts can make or break the mood of the reception. Speeches are given these days by everyone from the bride and groom and father and mother of the bride and groom down to all their friends.

Everyone enjoys the thanks, praise and jokes when the speeches are well written and delivered. Nothing is more embarrassing than a poorly conceived and delivered speech.

But what exactly is a wedding speech … and what is a toast?

The tradition of wedding toasts is to give a praise or blessing to members of the wedding party followed by everyone raising their glasses, clinking them together and drinking in agreement. The classic opening of a wedding toast is to say “I would like to propose a toast!”

It is generally believed that the tradition of toasts started, probably in Greece, with a host showing that the wine was not poisoned by pouring everyone’s glass from a common decanter then taking the first drink himself along with a wish for everyone’s health. In the 17th century Europeans would flavor drinks with bits of spiced toast and drink to the hostess who had added the flavoring.

The tradition grew from a simple raising of glasses and drinking to today’s custom of presenting a prepared speech before the giving of the actual toast. The “toast of the evening” of course is the bride and groom. But no speech would be complete without thanking everyone and offering praise and congratulations to all involved. The perfect speech and toast to the bride should include all these plus provide a degree of entertainment to the assembled guests.

Today everyone watches television and see movies so the entertainment value of giving a speech is going to seem pretty dull compared to other choices people have. However, most people today rarely see live entertainment, especially that is talking about them, so a well prepared and presented speech and toast to the bride can be a fun novelty that may well be remembered for years.

So prepare and present your speech carefully and then be ready to say a heartfelt toast such as: “May you live as long as you love, and love as long as you live.”

Why I Created “Toast To The Bride”

For nearly two decades of videoing weddings I have gotten to share in this most joyful day with countless families. Nearly all weddings are wonderful events where most things go according to plans and the things that don’t just create laughter. Except for the speeches!

It seems most people have tremendous fear of public speaking and therefore put off preparing for their toast to the bride. The result is, much too often, painful long minutes of listening someone who’s had a little too much to drink say thoroughly embarrassing things. The important things never get said and people will be wincing for years to come at how Uncle Sal or Joe Bob make a complete ass of themselves.

It doesn’t have to be this way because giving a wedding speech is actually very easy. If one knows the basic rules, anyone could give a perfect, charming wedding speech that everyone would applaud with no more than 30 minutes preparation.

I’m going to attempt to outline what you need to know in this blog. If you find yourself with only hours to go before the wedding and no speech in hand then I suggest you get the little book you can see in the right hand column of this blog. Get it for two reasons: It is an small electronic book that you can be reading three minutes from now, and it is a really good book.

They actually sell you a version especially written for the exact speech you are going to be giving. For example “father of the bride”, “best man”, etc. In each version of the book you will find many complete speeches that you can customize in minutes, or if you have a little more time you can learn what the basic elements are that need to go into the speech and put together your own presentation that will fulfill all the rules of etiquette while leaving everyone feeling good about you and the wedding.

Here’s one more reason to buy the wedding speeches books I recommend. After you buy a book they will tell you how you can help them sell more books and they will pay you a commission for each book you sell. I loved the wedding speeches books I own and love that I can make a little money by helping other people.

There is no excuse for becoming a legend of bad wedding speeches, imortalized forever on video, when you can instead be a star of the day with the perfect comments that the bride and groom will cherish.

Giving a Funny Toast to the Bride

The first bit of advice I want to give is that if you aren’t good at telling jokes and making people laugh then don’t try to give a funny wedding speech. Few things are more embarrassing than watching someone try to be funny when they aren’t.

That being said here are some important factors to take into account when you want to create a funny toast to the bride. First of all, consider the audience. You probably won’t know most of the people at the wedding but you will know the wedding couple and some of their friends and family. Are they people who will appreciate a bit of humor? If the reception is taking place in a church and the mood is rather somber or spiritual as opposed to playful then you probably want to skip the jokes. Will the humor work for people of all ages, beliefs and political persuasions?

The overall goal of wedding speeches is to flatter the bride and groom and to thank and congratulate everyone involved. If you joke doesn’t somehow tie into that message, or especially if the joke is mean spirited or critical then skip it. Retelling a funny situation that happened before the wedding or remembering a funny thing that happened to the bride or groom in the past can be a good funny bit to add, as long as it doesn’t make fun of anyone or won’t be taken wrong. When in doubt, don’t.

Your speech should have a flow and a point to it. You are trying to illustrate the find character of the wedding couple and their friends and family, not make fun of them. General stories about subjects such as the pitfalls of married life can be good sources of humor as long as they are tasteful and don’t in any way make fun of the proceedings.

Also remember that you are not the star. Never give a speech that make you seem more important than the bride and groom.

Some Wedding Speech Resources

Today I wanted to point out a couple of places where you can get some good information on giving wedding speeches.

The first, and my most highly recommended resource, is the series of books available from Wedding Speech 4 U. They are electronic, downloadable books, each about 100 pages in length, that are the best resource for understanding, assembling and presenting a wedding speech I have found. They explain in very simple terms what the purpose of a wedding speech is and how to best accomplish it the quickest and easiest way.

If you are in a hurry you can just quickly adapt any one of the pre-prepared speeches written to cover any situation. If you have more time the books will lead you through an enjoyable process of assembling and giving the speech.

I have found two blogs, each by people who recently gave wedding speeches, that offer some very well considered thoughts about how they assembled their speeches. The first blog is about bride speeches. It was assembled by a young woman who was a recent bride. She talks about the common problem of stage fright and a number of other things that went into her bride’s speech.

The other blog is by a young woman who was a maid of honor. Her blog is filled with maid of honor speeches tips. She clearly understands the purpose of wedding speeches is the honor the wedding couple and their families and friends and to thank everyone involved.

If you are interested in wedding speeches I think you will enjoy any of these resources.

Four More Fun Wedding Toasts

To the lamp of love – may it burn brightest in the darkest hours and never flicker in the winds of trial.

Straight forward and to the point:

May ‘for better or worse’ be far better than worse.

A good bit of marriage wisdom for the wedding day:

The man or woman you really love will never grow old to you. Through the wrinkles of time, through the bowed frame of years, you will always see the dear face and feel the warm heart union of your eternal love.

Make sure they actually want children:

May you have many children and may they grow mature in taste and healthy in color and as sought after as the contents of the glass.

Five Wedding Toasts I Like

My greatest wish for the two of you is that through the years your love for each other will so deepen and grow, that years from now you will look back on this day, your wedding day, as the day you loved each other the least.

It doesn’t matter where you get your appetite, as long as you eat at home!

Always a nice thing to say:

May the best day of your past be the worst day of your future.

This is a fun toast for the wedding:

Marriage: A community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves – making in all, two.

May the roof above you never fall in and may you both never fall out.

Great Toasts to the Bride and Groom

Three toasts to both the Bride and Groom to use at the wedding reception.

Look down you gods and on this couple drop a blessed crown.

Remember that if you ever put your marital problems on the back burner they are sure to boil over.

Happy marriages begin when we marry the one we love, and they blossom when we love the one we married.

These are all good.

An Interesting Toast to Everyone At the Wedding

I liked this old-fashioned toast that covers everyone:

Let us toast the health of the bride; Let us toast the health of the groom, Let us toast the person that tied; Let us toast every guest in the room.

And Merry Christmas to you all!

More Wedding Toasts

Here are more wedding toasts for the reception I’ve recently found. Some are rather old-fashioned and corny but so are weddings.

These two are for the bridesmaids:

To the Bridesmaids
A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Here’s to these beautiful bridesmaids.

We admire them for their beauty, respect them for their intelligence, adore them for their virtues, and love them because we can’t help it.

Here’s a nice toast to the Groom:

Here’s to the groom, a man who keeps his head though he loses his heart.

Here’s a nice sentiment in a toast for parents to give to the bridal couple:

It is written: when children find true love, parents find true joy. Here’s to your joy and ours, from this day forward.

Some Wedding Toasts

Here’s some classic Toasts to the Bride you can use or adapt:

This one can be from the Groom to the Bride, or even from the Bride to the Groom:

Here’s to the prettiest, here’s to the wittiest, here’s to the truest of all who are true, here’s to the neatest one, here’s to the sweetest one, here’s to them, all in one – here’s to you.

Here’s one anyone can give to the Bride that includes a bit of humor:

May she share everything with her husband, including the housework.

This toast is for the Groom to give to the Bride with sincerity:

She knows all about me and loves me just the same.