Father of the bride speech - less is more

Whenever I'm writing a speech, I'll always be thinking of how to keep it as efficient as possible; after all why use 3 sentences when one will do the trick? A classic mistake in so many speeches is to say the same thing but in several different ways, however, there's another area where to keep an eye on what you're saying and how long you're spending on it...and that's you daughter's achievements.

The father of the bride speech does present a unique opportunity to celebrate your daughter's achievements, but at the same time there's a very fine line between that, and self aggrandisement...or good old fashioned showing off. Nothing will rankle and irritate more than using parts of your speech to lay out in concrete terms just how much better in life the bride is, than so many other people's children. Of course, the urge to spell out just what her college exam results were, a breakdown of her graduation, and in depth look at the selection process for her highly coveted career and a quick look at her bonus scheme, but be incredibly powerful. However, you need to resist that urge at all costs.

Courtesy of social media, most people will have more than a rough idea of just how well your daughter is doing, and to emphasise that would be incredibly clumsy. The guests have all spent a fortune getting there, they may well have issues with their own career/family/income and being subjected to a little dollop of verbal elitism, is not going to go down well. On the other hand, if your daughter is very successful, and you simply skim over her accomplishments, then that will be seen as an incredibly well judged and sophisticated thing to do. Those that are happiest and confident, rarely do the most shouting.

So, keep it subtle, avoid granular academic detail, and if she was selected from 1000 applicants to work in corporate law, then maybe save that for drinks at the bar.