I’m a best man in a wedding coming up and have been researching speeches and toasts on the net. I’ve noticed that the speeches on the UK sites tend to be incredibly long, while the US ones aren’t and even make a point of brevity.
Is this some kind of difference in customs, or am I just imagining things?
Where are you giving the speech, in the US or UK? I’ve been to many (UK) weddings and been best man at two. I even have a book called 'The Best Man’s Duties’ I picked up at a used bookstore for 30p (published in 1968 and not worth the paper it’s printed on).
The speeches I gave were about 10-12 minutes (tops) long. I’ve been to other weddings where they were longer. Sometimes this works - if you’re a good public speaker and prepared to do your research - and sometimes it most definitely doesn’t.
Can you point at the sites you’ve seen? I’d be interested.
I have been Best Man quite a few times. In my social circle, the job of the Best Man is to provide an amusing speech of whatever length, but it should cover (gently) many of the minor character flaws of the man getting married.
The most recent Best Man’s speech I have seen (and one of the funniest) was accompanied by an hilarious slide show of embarrassing pictures, cartoons and headlines.
The skill is to make the speech outlandish to those who understand it and innocuous to maiden aunts. As British English is full of irony, debasement and gentle double entendre, it is possible to deliver a speech outlining a long series of sexual and other peccadillos in great detail, without those people in the audience who would be offended realizing that anything is amiss.
But whatever you do, do not all the bride by the name of the person’s ex- I’ve seen it done, it brought the roof down, but the Best Man just wanted to sink into the floor.
I’m in the US.
Example of US Perspective:“Do not talk longer than 4 minutes unless you KNOW you are a natural orator who can keep an audience on the edge of its seat.” Quite a bit shorter than 10-12 (or longer) minutes. And asking around my office, people are very surprised you would have a 10-12 minute speech by the best man.
The UK sites also seem to make a big point about how the best man’s job is to make fun of the groom, which doesn’t seem like it’s actually the point of the US speech.
For instance, this site.