I have a year to prepare for being the best man at my best friend’s wedding. And i’m going to need it!! I’m not too bothered about the organisational side, stag do, losing the ring, sleeping with the bridesmaids noooo problem.
But the speech!! :o
I am useless at standing infront of people and talking, the last time I spoke infront of anyone pure nervous energy built up inside me as I was mumbling infront of my confused audience and I managed to pull the side of the OHP apart. My heart goes into overdrive, I start speaking really quietly and mumbling and forgetting things and then I break stuff!!
So would you
A) politely decline the offer of being best man.
B) Do something to improve/practice your public speaking (not get drunk!) i.e. join a theatre group or try and find a course or something.
And is it even possible?! We’re all born with certain strengths and weaknesses, if your weakness is public speaking will any amount of practice make you a good speaker? e.g. if Prince Charles practices for a year he’d still be a crap rapper!!
well this is pure philosophy. if you say so, nothing can be improved, you’d still crawl around on the floor.
anyway:
join a theatregroup is an awesome idea. I never had problems with this, but I like theatre. so I joined one @ school. a friend of mine was very nervous… at the beginning. she got ALOT cooler and alot more relaxed.
well I honestly do not get why ppl are nervous. ok I understand the feeling of beeing afraid to fail. but you have to drop this, really. a simple slip of the tongue is nothing to worry about. “fail” is impossible in this case (imo).
I agree which is why I said I’d be honoured to do it. But I wasn’t sure if declining on these grounds was a common thing and people did it all the time. If it was then it might be best for the wedding if I wasn’t the one speaking.
Nah, me neither but it just happens on a completely involuntary basis like breathing! You have no control over the complete loss of social skills, they just disapear the moment a room full of people hushes and looks at you. Maybe with practice you can keep hold of them but I don’t know.
This is something I really want to do for them, but if I look at it realistically I can’t see myself pulling it off. But then i’m quite the pessimistic fellow so maybe i’m wrong!
Keep it short and sweet; if you can, try and think if a funny story involving your buddy ( make sure its appropriate to say around kids and grandma’s ).
I don’t know your buddy, but I think most guys don’t really care too much about the speech. Just get it over with so you can get back to the party! Write it down, don’t worry about looking at people.
The most important duty of the best man is organizing a kick ass bachelor party!
I used to be a shitty public speaker. But if you just keep getting up there and doing it eventually you realize there is NOTHING to fear and the involuntary nervousness goes away. trust me. You keep practicing and by the time of the wedding you will be a great speaker. 8)
I don’t know if you saw the thread but I was best man at my brother’s wedding last September. I was thinking about turning it down at first but it’s one of those duties in life that make you a lasting friend (if you don’t balls it up :)) because people look at wedding vids/photos for years to come.
I was really nervous on the day but I made sure that I prepared my speech. Try to avoid the free online speeches because they are mostly cheesey but the sites give some good advice for wedding etiquette. You have to thank bridesmaids and make a toast at the end etc.
One really bad thing that happened to me was that I hadn’t been feeling good in the week before the wedding (stomach bug) so I was still a bit queezy on the day. We had the speeches after lunch (thanks to the mother-in-law) and we had chicken wrapped in bacon.
To me that is pretty much the only food (other than cold vegetable soup because it looks like puke) that makes me want to throw up. The smell is how I imagine cooked human flesh would smell.
So, I didn’t eat at all before the speech. I was a little nervous at my turn so I just read my speech pretty much word for word (write it out word for word so you don’t have to improv from cue cards). People were really nice to me afterwards about it but my delivery was too quiet so some old people didn’t hear it but I got enough laughs.
I can’t say it was the most enjoyable thing I’ve ever done but it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I hate that I only thought that when I sat down though. I get the same uncontrollable nervousness as you described. I definitely think that regular public speaking will make you better. I used to go to church and the more regularly people got up and spoke, the more relaxed they were. The only time I spoke publicly before the wedding was for my honours university project about a year and a half previous so I wasn’t prepared on that front.
About the stag night, my brother actually arranged it himself and he even had a groomsman besides me. I kind of regret not arranging something for him but he lived on the other side of the country and I didn’t know any of his friends so I figured it was best to let him do it. Some people weren’t that pleased about it since it’s one of the main duties of a best man but I think it would have been terrible if I’d done it and I did pay for it so it was ok in the end.
well i was going to say something like “imagine them all in there underwear” , but considering that there will be relatives / future relatives there thats not such a good idea…
you have to make some jokes and get a little laughter going, thats like the main point of a speech to me. and other than that dont worry, put yourself in there shoes and think about what they would be thinking while sitting down there listening.
and you have a whole year to prepare the speach and practice speaking (and not ripping things apart while speaking)
i say do it, but use your creativity to help make it a comfortable situation. i remember in college we had to perform in front of the class, thats right not only speak but perform. anything we wanted, it was one of those “performance peices” haha. so i said fuck it. i turned off all the lights laid a pillow and blanket on the floor and turned on a little radio beside me and pretended to sleep. the catch was i had prerecorded some dialog of myself and then performed a conversation with the recorder. it was funny, the recording on the tape was like get off the floor this is a college class, and i said something like this is my performance piece. got big laughs, got an a+, did my performance, as comfortable as one could be in that situation.
when i hear about public speaking (which also scares me very badly) i always think of the sienfeld bit were he says “the #1 thing people fear the most is public speaking, the #2 thing is death…so most people would rather be the guy in the casket then the guy giving the eulogy”
hope this helps, good luck, i’m best man in one year too, ahhhhhhhhhh!
I feel your pain buddy, next month I am the best man for my friends wedding. I am not worried about it, just remember that it is his I mean her day and you are just a very small piece of the puzzle. Keep that perspective and let it ride
Thanks for your replies guys. I think i’m gonna be in the exact same position you were osxrules, i’ll have to hunt down that thread.
It’s good to hear that it’s possible to improve too VulcanKid!
I’m going to give practicing a go. Unfortunately the theatre group I was thinking of actually looks a bit too pro. and i can’t find any public speaking courses so i’m going to have to find other situations! I think I’m going to start small with telling long(ish) jokes down the pub but not sure where to go after that!
).
