The wedding speeches are undoubtedly one of the highlights of the day. They can be emotive, revealing and comical but then there’s that other adjective that everyone wants to avoid: boring. From the most tightly regimented to the most free-flowing of there’s no absolute formula as to what makes a great speech, but should you try to avoid entering the dangerous “rambling zone” by setting a definite time limit on each of the speeches? Let’s see whether we can get to the bottom of this one in under 3 pages!
In the Red Corner, fighting for the free-flowing speech, after all that gives her plenty of opportunity to get around the room photographing the reactions, it’s Dom “The Tog Bride”
In the Blue Corner, fighting for a clear time limit, well he is the guy who has to listen back to the speeches afterwards and edit them into a film however long they may be, it’s Matt “The Gormless Groom”.
Time Limit Vs Free-Flowing
FIGHT!!
.jpg)
Dom: Different speakers work in very different ways. Some of the more confident speakers will be able to grab their audience’s attention immediately and talk about everything very clearly and concisely whilst others may take a little while to gain their confidence and say what they really wanted to say. Often the most emotive parts of the speech are towards the end and you really wouldn’t want to cut them short.
Matt: For the speakers (particularly the less experienced ones) it’s often difficult to know how much you should say and having a clear time-frame can actually be very helpful in organising your thoughts and editing down your speech to help make the delivery more slick and interesting.
Dom: For the groom in particular there are often lots of thank you’s to be said and presents to give out etc which can take a little while depending on how people react. If you put too much of a time limit on this you might find there’s no time left for the actual speech!
Matt: But whilst it’s lovely to publicly thank all those people who helped with the wedding and to give them gifts this really does slow down the whole speeches and can quickly become very boring for the guests. Perhaps it’s better to give an overall thank-you or maybe quickly cycle through names and then thank them privately later and give them any gifts then.
Dom: Wedding speeches are not like delivering a public speech at say a conference where everything needs to be slick and concise, some of the best wedding speeches come when the speakers put down their notes and just speak from the heart and you can’t put a time limit on something like that.
Matt: But having a time limit can encourage you to reach those important moments of the speech that are the parts everyone really wants to hear more quickly and to forget about the parts that might lose your guest’s attention.
Dom: Many weddings I’ve been a part of have had bets running on how long the speeches would last which can be great fun for the guests and often provide the speakers with a little light banter to see who wins!
Matt: But having a time limit can also be quite funny as when people over-run all the guests start to give them a count-down to get to the end or we’ve even known people play the countdown theme with rapturous applause when they reach the end on the very last note! You could also have a scoring system for the speakers with penalty points for running over to provide more entertainment for the guests.
Dom: Sometimes a speaker can completely hold the attention of the room for longer with an interesting story or perhaps something interactive like a video and cutting this short is only detrimental to the speech and also leaves you with more time to have to entertain your guests in some other way.
Matt: Having a handle on exactly how long the speeches will last makes it much easier to put together an accurate schedule of the day rather than saying the speeches will last somewhere between 10minutes and an hour and a half. This is particularly important if the speeches are happening before the meal as the caterers will need to know exactly when to have the meals ready for.
.jpg)
So those are our thoughts but where do you stand? Will you be putting a time limit on your wedding speeches? Leave a comment to join the debate or just place your votes in our poll below!
[yop_poll id=”33″]
Images by York Place Studios
I want to say ‘timed’ but wouldn’t ever want anyone to be told to stop as that would be a bit mortifying! Speeches can go on a bit, and I think some good advice in the planning stages, giving approximate timings to work to, are helpful – especially for nervous speakers who might prefer to opt for the minimum. I’ve sat through a good number of best man’s speeches which have rambled on for waaaay too long – props and funny stories are great, but much more than 8-10 mins max, and people start to get fed up. Unless of course they are super witty and great at public speaking (and are in fact Benedict Cumberbatch being Sherlock)in which case, go for it 🙂