Speaking of Empowerment

In a wedding ritual, there is a woman accompanying and assisting the bride. She is the best friend or closest girl friend of the bride, serving as her maid of honor. At the reception, a speech or message is expected for her to deliver. Maid of honor speeches generally are about good luck wishes, with advices and good stories in between.

When you are about to deliver a speech on a wedding as the maid of honor, do you prepare for it? Just like when the best man would, do you get nervous too at the thought? To most girls, it seem a lot easier for them to perform the other duties expected from a maid of honor than doing a speech. After all, duties like selecting dresses and wedding gown for the bride are easily done without much sweat.

Disseminating invitations or decorating the ceremony and reception venues is no different either. Even getting the bride dressed neatly and beautifully on her big day is not a big deal. During the ceremony, to carry the bride’s flower bouquet, keep the ring until exchanging occurs, and to sign the paper as a witness are duties you can easily perform without problems.

Even to help the best man carry the gifts to the bride, to dance with him on the floor, and help re-arrange the venues are simple tasks to carry out. But when it is about the maid of honor speeches, why does it seem different? If you are like some girls, you probably are having tough times coming up with your own wedding speech?

No need to worry though, if you follow the right guidelines when doing a maid of honor speech. Starting by addressing the event is the first important thing you should do. After which, introduce yourself to all the people present in the wedding followed by congratulatory remarks for the couple. Thank the couple too, especially the bride, for making you as integral part of the wedding vows. Say how honored you are for them trusting you to be their friend.

Next thing to talk about is the circumstances and time period from which you have been good friends ever since. You can tell them anything concerning the bride alone, or the couple, especially about the love romance between them, how it has developed, and has found them united as one to this day. It is also alright if you reveal the place where they met and fell in love for the first time.

To elaborate the kind of connections you have with the couple, share your experiences with them. After which, speak about the good qualities of the bride and how ideal she is for the groom. Tell them as well that after all those times, they ended up together as one now.

As you are about to conclude your speech, give them your own insights and advices concerning marriage life. To end, propose a good luck wish to the bride and groom. Another tip is to remove any negative implications or anything in the maid of honor speeches that might cause discomfort. Additionally, it is alright to be humorous or use notes if you are nervous so to avoid spoiling the moment.

Wedding is a tradtion that has its roots in ancient customs and goes as far back as many centuries ago. Here, in this part of the world, customs and traditions for speeches for weddingshave developed. Some of the more notable ones are here.

The official order of the wedding speeches – Traditionally, there are just three speeches given in the wedding reception – the speech of the father of the bride, the groom’s speech and the best man’s speech. This is the origina arrangement of the speeches and for many years, have remained unchanged. In the recent years, however, rules as to which speech follows which has somewhat changed partially because of the introduction of newer speeches such as the bride’s speech, the bridesmaids’ speech, maid of honour’s speech and other speeches in between. Hard and fast rules which used to govern the succession of the speeches have all but vanished and so it is up to the couple to follow the traditional or modern way of arranging the order of the speeches.

The structure of the speeches – Each of these speeches has customary characteristics which are somewhat etched in stone. The only areas where significant changes can be seen are in the tone and format of the speech. Whereas the bridegroom’s speech used to be highly formal, it has now become a speech where humor is accepted. The best man speech, while it used to be the sole task of one best man, is now allowed to be delivered by two best men and even by a lady best man. There are some things that don’t change though. The speech delivered by the father of the bride, for example, still sounds very affectionate towards the bride.

Who delivers particular messages – The format, the tone and the arrangement of the wedding speeches may change but the general content of each speech don’t. The first to speak, the father of the bride, is normally the one who welcomes the guests on behalf of the couple. This is then followed by a brief description of the bride. He also mentions some kind remarks about his new son-in-law. He then ends his speech with a sincere toast to the couple.

The groom’s speech comes right after. His speech begins with welcoming the guests to the wedding, and recently with a joke or a funny one liner.

This speech is where gratefulness to all the people who have shared their time and resources is expressed. In between the introductory and the finishing lines, the groom can also send out gifts to very important people in the audience. As a crucial part of this speech, the groom also describes his wife in the most affectionate manner. His speech ends with a toast or with a short introduction of the best man.

Right after this speech is the best man’s speech, the funniest of all. It is in this speech where amusing anecdotes are mentioned. The funny speech finishes in the more serious tone of the ‘toast of the parents’.

Speeches for weddingsare filled with time-honoured traditions. With the passing of time, however, many of the aspects of these speeches for weddings have changed.