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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.