I am the MC at my little brother’s wedding this Sunday and am looking for some hilarious jokes or ideas. He works for a Shakespearean Theatre Company so I was thinking of using that as a thread. He is also marrying into a very religious family which I think lends itself to some gentle irreverance. My family loves to laugh!
Any ideas, thoughts or support would be very much appreciated.
Thank you
Well, I hear this one at every wedding, so it must be a traditional joke.
First comes the engagement ring.
Then comes the wedding ring.
And finally… the suffering.
What are three typical features of a wedding?
Aisle, altar, hymn.
What three-word phrase goes through many a bride’s mind as she contemplates her groom?
“I’ll alter him!”
That’s a funny one but it’s a Jewish wedding.
A couple of days before the wedding the groom says to the bride: “I never told you this, but I have been married before. My wife walked out on me because all I could think about was golf”.
The bride says: “I have something that I should share as well; I’m a hooker”.
The groom replys: “That’s OK, you just need to keep your head down and follow through”.
Here’s a toast:
“…revel it as bravely as the best,/With silken coats and caps and golden rings,/With ruffs and cuffs and farthingales and things;/With scarfs and fans and double change of brav’ry,/With amber bracelets, beads, and all this knav’ry.”
–The Taming of the Shrew, Act IV, scene iii
I suppose it would do no good to remind you of my standard advice to the first-time bast man, MC, or other wedding speaker? Tough.
“You are not Hugh Grant. Do not try to be funny; you will just piss off the bride.”
Listen to Nametag. You have to be very, very, very sure of your audience to pull something like this off, and even then it can be dicey.
I don’t know your sil’s family, but as a general rule gentle irreverence is not appreciated by the deeply religious, especially at religious occasions. If you try to bring the funny with the religion jokes, you stand an excellent chance of pissing off the bride and her family. If this happens, YOU WILL NEVER EVER BE ABLE TO LIVE IT DOWN. Thirty years from now, you’ll still be the jackass who ruined the wedding. Hell hath no fury like people who were offended at a wedding. Trust me on this one.
Opening with the one about the groom, the two Thai ladyboys and the rash that wouldn’t go away is not a good idea. Trust me on this.
So:
"Jesus never married, but he WAS popular with the ladies because he was hung like this < hold arms out to the side, like your showing someone how big a fish was, and hang your head a bit >
would probably not endear you to the in-laws?
That’s just asking for a short presentation of his baby-photos, with suitable costumes superimposed.
But on the serious side - steer clear of anything remotely religious when in such situations. Just don’t. It’s not worth it.
(I do want to share a truly great message, that unfortunately arrived too late to be read at a friend’s wedding, from his amateur football team (duly censored 
) :
All joking aside, comedy is a serious business. Standup commedians who are good at it practice long and hard to hone their act so that it words. At a wedding you have to make sure the jokes come off right and as you intended. There isn’t any place you can break in the act.
I’d play it straight. I speak as one who once tried a few jokes at a retirement party. I still wish I hadn’t.