So the time has arisen when you have been asked to make a wedding speech. The first thing that will enter you mind is you will quite often be addressing a large wedding reception. Some may find this quite daunting but if you follow these simple steps your wedding speech will be delivered without a hitch.

The key to any good wedding speech is to plan it properly. Allow yourself several weeks if you can before the big day to get the wedding speech perfected. Spend some time with the bride and groom finding out as much information that can be used in your wedding speech. However remember some of the information you may receive especially from friends of the bride and groom may not be appropriate for this special occasion.

If you are going to include jokes in your wedding speech make sure they are tasteful and will not offend any of the bridal party.

Try not to talk about embarrassing moments that the bride and groom would rather forget. There is nothing worse than making your audience or worst still the bride and groom feel uncomfortable on their big day.

Try not to make the speech too long or too short, you don’t want people getting bored half way through and you don’t want to leave them thinking you have rushed through your wedding speech.

If you clam up or start to feel nervous there won’t be a person there who will not feel sorry for you, make a joke, pull a face, you are only human after all!

The key to delivering any good wedding speech is practise. Practise as much as you can so you know the wedding speech inside out and upside down. That said there are no rules to say you can not read from a script or hold some point cards so you know what you are going to talk about next.

Try to stay relaxed. Eating a banana half an hour beforehand can help with anxiety. Avoid drinking coffee. Whilst it is fine to have an alcoholic drink or two to steady your nerves, to not over do it as the last thing any wedding reception needs is a drunken best man.

If you are using a microphone try to make time before the wedding reception to carry out a sound check.

Remember to thank other members of the bridal party and point out how beautiful the bride and bridesmaids look and of course how stunning the wedding dress is.

It can take weeks or even months to prepare a good quality wedding speech, which will last only a few minutes but a well thought-out wedding speech will be greatly appreciated by the audience and the bride and groom on their wedding day.