I was recently asked to be the Maid of Honor for my best friends wedding and I wanted to do all I could to make the day special. When I was first asked, I committed to giving a toast at the reception. With all the other activities going on around the wedding planning, I kind of forgot about writing that toast. Before I knew it, I was only days away from the reception and I had no clue what I was going to say. Fear can be a terrible thing.
Each of us has different ideas of what we want to get across when we're composing a speach. We may want to be funny, witty, insightful, or just go straight to over the top sappiness. Regardless of which result you are looking for, you need to plan things out to be prepared to do the perfect toast.
There's no shame in reading. I don't care what people say, reading is not overrated. It took a lot of time to write out your perfect toast; why take the risk of leaving out some of your material? Think back to some of the better speeches you've witnessed. I'm willing to admit almost all of them were done with the speech giver reading off of their notes.
Write it out and practice. Please take the time to write out what you want to say and then try to find a person to help you practice it. Great speakers are great because of all the preparation they put in to the task beforehand. Like anything else in life, the more you practice something, the better you become at it. The task can be difficult when you're prepared; why make it any harder?
Open bars are a great perk to being in the bridal party, but make sure you pay attention to how much you've had to drink. You put a lot of effort into composing the perfect maid of honor toast and you don't want to mess it up because you've gone a bit over the edge.
Be aware of who is in the crowd. You may want to tell some embarrassing stories about your girlfriend, but keep in mind that people from all walks of her life will be in attendance. Her parents, future in-laws, aunts and uncles, co-workers and possibly even her supervisor. Don't make her look like an idiot in front of them just for the sake of a few laughs.
Include a personal touch. Nothing personalizes a toast more than sharing how goofy you were as friends through various points of your developments. You will most likely draw quite a few laughs from the crowd, which in turn makes them more likely to follow your message.
I was always nervous about speaking in public, and I became more aware of this while composing my maid of honor toast. Once I developed a plan of action and made sure to practice, I was able to draft a wedding toast that was a huge success. Follow my formula and I know you'll be a hit just like me.
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