Wedding Speeches: A Practical Guide to Order, Length and Delivery
The speeches are the bit of the day most couples worry about, and the bit most guests quietly look forward to. Done well, they warm the room and set the tone for the evening. Done badly, they overrun and drag the mood down. The difference is rarely down to talent. It’s down to planning.
This is a plain-English guide to wedding speeches. How many to have, in what order, how long each one should be, who’s optional, and how to give whoever’s speaking the best chance of giving a lovely one. It sits alongside our post on writing your own wedding vows — many of the same principles apply, with a few speech-specific things worth knowing.
Who Traditionally Speaks
The classic running order at a British wedding has three speeches. Worth knowing what they are before deciding whether to stick with it.
Father of the bride. Traditionally opens things. Welcomes guests, says something warm about his daughter, thanks the couple’s parents, toasts the couple. Usually the shortest of the three at around five to eight minutes.
Groom (or one of the couple). Follows on. Thanks guests, thanks parents, thanks the bridal party, presents the bridesmaids with gifts if that’s happening, toasts the bride. Also five to eight minutes.
Best man. Closes the speeches. Anecdotes about the groom, a gentle roast, a warm resolution, a toast to the couple. Traditionally the longest at eight to twelve minutes, though shorter is almost always better.
That’s the traditional shape. It’s fine, and plenty of couples still follow it. It also rests on assumptions that don’t fit every wedding — only men speaking, the bride not speaking for herself, the family structure lining up neatly with tradition. Worth being honest about what’s baked in.
The Modern Version
Most weddings we host now look a little different from the classic template.
Both partners speak. The bride speaks alongside the groom, or the second half of a same-sex couple, or the couple share a joint speech. This is now closer to the norm than the exception.
Whichever parents want to speak, speak. Instead of automatically the father of the bride, whichever parent has something to say. Some weddings have mothers speak. Some have step-parents involved. Some skip the parent generation entirely.
Best woman, chief bridesmaid, maid of honour. Any of them can speak instead of or alongside a best man. Some couples have two wedding-party speeches — one from each side.
Friends and siblings. Increasingly common for a sibling or close friend to give a short speech, particularly if a parent isn’t speaking.
The couple themselves. Some couples give a short joint welcome at the start of dinner rather than sitting inside the traditional running order.
The rule is straightforward: whoever has something to say gets the chance to say it, and no one should feel obliged to speak just because tradition says they should.
When to Do the Speeches
Two main options and one middle ground.
Before the meal. Speeches happen after guests are seated but before the food arrives. Speakers get it out of the way and enjoy dinner. The room’s attention is fresh. No competing with clinking cutlery. The downside is that guests are hungry, speakers get less time to warm up over a drink, and the meal is delayed.
After the meal. The traditional version. Speeches happen after the last course, before dessert or coffee. Everyone’s fed, watered and relaxed. Speakers have had a drink and settled into the day. The downside is that whoever’s speaking has spent a nervy meal barely eating, the room can drift if speeches run long, and guests need the loo.
Between courses. The middle ground more couples are choosing. One speech between starter and main, one between main and dessert, one after dessert with the toast. Breaks up the meal, gives each speech its own moment, and stops the block from feeling like a marathon. Requires slightly more coordination with the venue but works beautifully when it does.
For most weddings, between-course speeches or after-the-meal speeches suit better than pre-meal ones — unless there’s a specific reason to do them first.
How Long Wedding Speeches Should Be
This is where a lot of weddings come unstuck.
Aim for five to eight minutes per speech, and roughly 25 minutes total for the whole block.
Longer than that and the room drifts, guests fidget, and the last speaker plays to a distracted crowd. This is a rule most speakers assume doesn’t apply to them because their speech is going to be the interesting one. It won’t. Even the best is helped by being shorter.
The best-man speech in particular has a reputation for overrunning. Ten minutes is plenty. Twelve is pushing it. Fifteen is too long. The best best-man speeches we’ve heard in recent years have been under seven minutes.
If you’re running four or five speeches instead of the traditional three, each one gets shorter — five minutes each, maximum, or the whole block becomes unmanageable.
What Makes a Good Wedding Speech
Rather than a strict template, four things every good wedding speech tends to do.
Say something specific. Not generic love-and-marriage platitudes — a memory, a moment, a specific thing about the couple that only the speaker would know. Specificity is what makes a speech land.
Get a laugh, but kindly. Warm humour beats sharp humour every time at a wedding. The best moments come from affectionate teasing, not roasting. If in doubt, cut the joke.
Say something moving. One sincere line about the couple, the family, the day itself. It doesn’t need to be a whole passage — a single sentence delivered with weight lands harder than a paragraph of feeling.
End on a toast. Every speech should finish with a clear “please raise your glasses to…” moment. It gives the room a clean action, signals the end, and wraps the speech.
Skip: long thank-you lists (thank people privately or in the printed programme), inside jokes only the wedding party understands, references to exes, anything the speaker wouldn’t say in front of the couple’s parents.
Giving the Speech: What Helps
The delivery is often more important than the words. A few things that consistently help.
Practise standing up, out loud, three or four times. Silent reading is nothing like standing at a mic in front of a hundred people. Rehearse in the voice you’ll use, at the pace you’ll deliver it. Time yourself.
Print it big. Large font, on proper card or paper, not a folded A4 sheet. Numbered pages in case they scatter. Readable at arm’s length with slightly nervous eyes.
Have a spare copy. Given to a coordinator or a mate. In case the original goes missing.
Start with a breath, not a joke. A single pause before you start settles you and the room. A joke opener that lands flat throws the rest of the speech. A warm opening line — “Thanks everyone for being here” or similar — buys you a moment to find your feet.
Look up between sections. Not throughout — no one expects that. But between paragraphs, lift the head, catch a warm face in the crowd, breathe, carry on. Makes the whole thing feel more personal.
Water, not champagne. A glass of water on the table beside you, not a full glass of wine. The wine has already done its job by getting you into the moment. Water keeps the throat working.
Get the mic right. Test it before the meal starts, not while everyone’s watching. A speaker fighting with a mic is the fastest way to lose a room.
Slow down. Nerves speed everyone up. Deliberately slower than feels natural is usually the right pace when it comes out through the mic.
Handling the Nerves
Almost every wedding speaker is nervous, and that’s fine. A few practical things that help.
Eat something. A properly nervous speaker often skips the meal, which makes the nerves worse. Force down a bit of something even if you don’t feel like it.
Don’t drink to calm down. More than one glass of wine before the speech is a mistake. It doesn’t calm nerves — it slurs the delivery and loosens what you say beyond what you’d want.
Ask a friend to catch your eye. Ask a specific person to sit somewhere you can see and be a smiling face when you look up. Nothing calming quite like a friend nodding along.
Accept that shaky hands are fine. The audience doesn’t see them. What they hear is the voice. Focus on breathing evenly and the voice steadies naturally.
Know the coordinator has your back. At Selden Barns we’ve seen enough speeches go slightly sideways to have a discreet system — someone with a spare copy of the speech, water on hand, a subtle signal if you need to wrap up. If the wheels come off, the room handles it. Nobody has ever remembered a wobbly speech as anything worse than “sweet.”
Common Mistakes
The classics that recur at almost every wedding season.
Running long. The single most common mistake. Cut before you deliver, not during.
Reading it in a monotone. A wedding speech isn’t a corporate presentation. Warmth in the voice matters as much as the words. Practise smiling as you speak.
Trying to be a comedian. Aim for one or two proper laughs, not a stand-up set. Too many jokes ruins the sincere moments.
No toast at the end. Speeches without a clear toast feel unresolved. Don’t skip it.
Not warning the couple. If you’re planning to bring up something private, weird, or contentious, ask the couple first. What sounds funny in your head might not sound funny with their aunt in the second row.
Reading a speech someone else wrote. Templates and AI-generated speeches almost always land flat. The couple can tell. The room can tell. It has to be your own voice, even if that voice is imperfect.
Forgetting who hosted. The traditional father-of-the-bride speech included thanks to whoever paid for the wedding. Modern hosting is often more complex, but a moment of thanks to whichever parents (or set of parents) contributed still matters and is often forgotten.
Alternative Formats
If the traditional block-of-three doesn’t suit you, some alternatives worth considering.
The single joint welcome. The couple gives one short welcome speech at the start of dinner and everyone else is off the hook. Increasingly common at smaller and more informal weddings.
Open mic. Anyone who wants to say something can, in a designated 20-30 minute window after the meal. Works well at smaller weddings where the crowd is close-knit. Doesn’t work at large weddings where too many people will queue up.
A shared toast. No formal speeches at all — one person raises a glass, says a few sentences, and hands the room over to the celebration. Very short, very effective, very underused.
Written contributions. Guests write short messages that are read aloud (or bound into a book) instead of standing to speak. Works for weddings where speaking would feel exposing.
Speeches spread through the day. A wedding-morning welcome, a toast between courses, a first-dance thank-you. Rather than one heavy block, spread the words across the day.
What We Do to Help
Every wedding we host includes speech coordination as part of the coordinator’s role. A few things we handle automatically:
- A clear timing signal so speakers know they’re up next.
- A test of the microphone before the meal, so nobody fights with it live.
- A backup copy of the speech held by the coordinator in case one goes missing.
- A discreet cue if a speech is running long and needs wrapping up.
- Water on hand at every speaking position.
We’ve seen a lot of speeches. They go well far more often than they don’t, particularly when they’re planned properly. The nerves are always worse before than during — most speakers finish and are surprised at how much they enjoyed it.
Come and See the Room
The room where speeches happen matters more than couples realise. A high-beamed barn with the whole wedding gathered in one space carries a warm speech beautifully. A room split across tables in different corners doesn’t.
Book onto our next open evening →
Plan the speeches early. Keep them short. Pick the people who genuinely want to speak. Rehearse aloud. End with a toast. Do those five things and the speeches will be one of the parts of the day everyone remembers for the right reasons.