Wedding speeches will be a central part of your reception. If you have been asked to make a speech, then this survival guide is for you.

You will not find a cookie-cutter, fill-in-the-blank speech here. GroomGroove.com believes that a good speech needs to be original. Those kind of wedding speeches are Boring (with a capital B), are never funny and don't reflect that the groom gave a damn about the most important speech of his life. And if you're tempted to find some jokes to put into the speech, odds are that you won't like the jokes and that you won't be comfortable delivering the lines. That certainly will not help you if your goal is to get through the speech as quickly as possible. The worst part is that the audience will know that you didn't write them. With that in mind, this survival guide will: (1) give you the tools you need to write and present a good speech, (2) cover some Dos and Don'ts, and (3) provide all-important instructions on how to fight a case of nerves.

Watch the video

This video will give you a ton of tips, really quick. Watch it, and keep reading.

Time
Aim to have a speech that is at maximum three or four minutes in length. This may seem like a long time, but it goes by very quickly, especially if you have followed GroomGroove.com's advice and prepared the speech in a couple weeks in advance. In fact, you are going to have to force yourself to slow down! That's the good news.

Prepared Text or Bullet Points but not Off-the-Cuff
It's safest to follow a prepared text or bullet points rather than deliver something off-the-cuff. Preparing the text will keep you on message and allows you to write something that is meaningful.

If you foresee getting nervous, the easiest thing to do is to read from a prepared text. This technique will certainly keep you on message, and is a good idea for those who are terrified of public speaking. As you're reading the text, you will want to make eye contact with your audience every few words or sentences.

That means looking up from your papers to the very back of the room while speaking, and periodically making direct eye contact with individuals. The key is to look up frequently and keep speaking while doing so.

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