Best Man Speech Formats

Usually one of the biggest problems with writing a best man speech is that you've got all the information but don't have a clue how to stitch it all together. Working out how to use all the stories, character traits, funny observations and anything else you've compiled, takes a lot of thinking about because you need this to be something that people want to listen to and will entertain them. So it's either a case of heavily editing what you've got or stretching it to fit the allotted time, so the best man speech format you might think, is critical.

The trick to sketching out a best man speech format is to look at it in a completely new way - forget everything you know, or think you know about wedding speeches. A great best man speech is neither an exercise in public humiliation, or a real time waltz through several stories that required being there in order for them to work. This is by far and away where most best men go catastrophically wrong. The usual format is to string together 3 stories which aren't particularly funny, and sandwich them between a hackneyed introduction and a cliched ending...and nothing could be more boring or difficult to land. Stories require a killer punchline - which most don't have - and when the first one doesn't work, getting through the remaining two could prove to be the longest 7 minutes of your life. So the most important thing when planning the format is to forget stories and instead use what they contain in a much more effective and condensed way.

Instead view the whole speech as a story and take the audience from a well thought out beginning to a meaningful and powerful ending. This might seem counterintuitive to begin with but when deciding how to write a speech the only people you need to have in mind are your audience: what will they want to hear? How will they want to be entertained? What is their comedy threshold? etc etc. And the bottom line is the guests just want to laugh. They've sat through the emotional and very often completely inexplicable father of the bride speech, they've endured a 45 minute groom speech, their new shoes are now really hurting, their ties feel like tourniquets and they just want to start enjoying themselves, and that's where you step in. Take them on one large comedic look at the groom, having fun with him, not at him, and celebrate his frailties and shortcomings in the most inclusive and entertaining way.

So when I'm drawing up the format I first look at what the groom was like when he was younger, - be it teenager, toddler or just starting work, and then try to map out his journey from that point to the current day groom. This gives you the basis of the one big story approach and from this you can plug all the holes in that story with nuggets from anecdotes, well crafted witty observations, or if you're really struggling, a little bit of fantasy. Yes, that's right, fantasy. You're there to make the guests laugh, sure you're going to say some lovely things about towards the end of the speech but if putting in some little falsehoods like he wanted to be a spaceman and applied to the Didcot Space Center, only to discover there wasn't one...tickles guests, then just do it.

So the best format is to decide at which point you're going to pick up the groom's life and then trace a pathway to the time when he met his lovely wife. The key to making all this stick together is daft comedy, don't rely on internet jokes, or grubby one liners, you need t make everyone laugh and so that means coming up with funny things in and around the groom's character. Explain how he went from being that slightly chubby, ginger kid with a thing about Thomas The Tank Engine to the urbane, metropolitan sophisticate who enjoys pilates. What was in his character as a 5 year old, that catapulted him to where he now finds himself? This should also allow you to bring in all those stories in condensed form, so instead of recounting how he walked around with a traffic cone on his head, simply drop it in to the speech as: 'he planned to become the first international astronaut who'd been cautioned by police for wearing a traffic cone in the small hours of Saturday evening'. That way you're stripping out the dull detail of the story but still letting everyone know what he did in a much more succinct and funnier way.

So, at the beginning introduce yourself, it will settle you down and allow you to build a rapport with the guests. Then set the scene at your starting point and begin. With this method, you're not restricted to viewing the best man speech as having a rigid format, in fact you're doing your very best to get away from that. This will allow you to be much more creative and give you huge scope to paper of cracks such as lack of material or dodgy parts of his life you'd rather leave out. The only other thing to remember is forget all the marital advice, bridesmaids and talking about being the best man - that is all very dull and part of the old school format that we're trying to get away from. Nothing is more pointless or conceited in a best man speech than the best man talking about himself when the subject is the groom. This usually stems form having nothing to say, but with my story format that shouldn't be an issue.

Towards the end you should talk about the happy couple but don;t budget for going into too much detail about how they met, as the groom will probably have just covered that in his preceding speech - apart from Australia where he'll follow you - and the last thing you want to do in tread on his toes, or even worse repeat parts of his speech.

So the first rule of best man speech format...is that there is no best man speech format. Treat it as one big story, and an open canvas will present itself and all you have to do is fill in the blanks whilst making them as funny as possible. Stick to around 1300 words and this will give you a talking time of around 7-8 minutes which will help you ensure complete victory on the day.