Wedding Breeze

Has your friend been nice enough to invite you to be the best man at his wedding and asked you for a speech or a wedding toast?  Crap.Another $120 tux and maybe even the responsibility for a speech.  Just kidding.It’ll be a blast.It’s as close as best men can get to the giddy feeling all ladies share when it’s the day to say ‘I do’.

I’m going to try to give you some helpful advice from my years as a corporate speaker and trainer.I’ll have you sailing through this toast thing in no time, with the audience left wanting more.Don’t worry about anything…you’re in experienced hands.  It’s an art I call “wedding toasts best man style”.

Okay, let’s get to the heart of this.When you think about how to give wedding toasts, best man to be, think about how you and the groom met.This will become a key part of the story you’ll be telling with the toast.

The basic breakdown of wedding toasts, best man centered, is a) the intro, b) a story, c) the ‘toast’.I say section c) is the toast, but in reality the entire thing is, it’s just that part c) feels like an official toast.

Let’s examine these sections a little closer:

In the intro, you’ll simply be telling everyone there who you are.This is usually done by stating your name, acknowledging that you’re the best man, and announcing your intentions to say a thing or two.

Then comes a tale.This will be the gateway to the audience’s mind, allowing you to paint from a wide palette of emotions. All the way from fear to sadness , content times, heartache, comedy …it’s all available to you here.In all your preparation for wedding toasts, best man style, Remember this:  there is something in us all that loves to hear a story.THEY LOVE TO.There is nobody on this Earth that won’t stop like a deer in headlights when you start telling them a story.A story is just a series of events, hopefully livened up with a little action to keep it amusing.Why is this so influential then?Psychologists think that because when we were developing as people on this planet , before we developed languages where we could actually communicate well…we told stories to each other to convey our ideas.This behavior is hardwired into humans as a survival device.Don’t believe so?Try beginning to tell anyone you are acquainted with a tale and see how right away they melt like putty, listening to your every word.

Then, there’s the official toast.Recall I said this whole thing, intro, story and this section are the toast.I continue with that, just that this is what you’ll believe feels like the toast.  You’ll raise your glass and offer a toast, out loud, to everyone, reflecting on some of the good qualities from your story.This is just like magic!  When you tell a story, then wrap it up with a toast that reflects on a quality conveyed in the previous story, it’s like you’re giving the toast with evidence that’s grounded in facts from the past.This is hugely powerful stuff!

Wrapping it all up like this will leave the audience feeling VERY good, bride and groom included.  It’s as if the audience’s brains want a logical conclusion to bring together the meaning of why they’ve been sitting there listening to you talk.  This does that for them.I still can’t point to any one hypothesis to this day as to why this works so well, all I can tell you is that it very much does.  All I can say is that everyone likes a compliment based in fact.When you offer a toast to the future based on a flattering quality of a person’s past , it’s almost as if the future that you’re toasting to seems to be even than much more likely , and therefore more credible.   Combine that with the sense of logical completeness, and there’s your winner.

I know this article was brief.  For more detailed information, see my site on wedding toasts best man style.And remember, you’ll do fine!  You’ve found the best info I use, and I know it works for me.  (I’m at 3 weddings in 2009 to date, twice as best man!)  Here’s to your success!