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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

• 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.

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.”

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.