8 classic toast blunders

Toasts should not be long outrageous or insulting. Toasts should
share a balance of humour and sentiment, be an appropriate length, and
have natural rhythm and sincerity. Increase your chances of delivering a
speech people will remember by avoiding these eight common pitfalls.

1. 1. Have A Dull Opening – This is
      guaranteed to lose your audience immediately. The opening sets the tone
      for everything to follow. And keep it tasteful. I attended one wedding
      in which the best man opened with, When I first met Steven, I thought he
      might be a member of the Taliban. Thankfully, I was wrong. The room
      fell quieter then a theatre showing a Pauly Shore film.
   2. Be Vulgar –  Use bathroom humour or
      vulgarity. Guaranteed to turn off everyone except juveniles, who will
      snicker appreciatively. No bride and groom deserve to have their day
      punctured by crass material. Just because cousin Darrell likes to tell
      jokes involving bodily functions doesn’t mean they’re funny. If you read
      over your toast and find it sounds like something cousin Darrel might
      have conceived, try again.
   3. Be Sure To Ramble –  Tell stories that
      have no point. Your lose your audience in a hurry. Anecdotes can serve
      as powerful accents to toast, but only if they mean something and go
      somewhere.Its not enough to say, Brenda and I have had lots of
      fun together over the years. One time we missed a concert because she
      had to make sure her bed was properly made!
      This may have been
      hilarious to the two of you at the time, but the audience has to
      understand why it’s funny. Does it (a) highlight Brenda’s compulsion for
      neatness or (b) that the two of you always make each other late or (c)
      that the only chore she ever had at home was making her bed, and she
      couldn’t even get that right.Any story should have significance within the overall theme of your toast, and the meaning should be clear to everyone.
   4. Embarrass The Couple – Cross the line
      from roasting to ridiculing and make everyone squirm. Teasing the bride
      or groom with personal quirks or idiosyncrasies can add humour and even
      affection to your toast – but be careful that the teasing doesn’t
      inadvertently tip over into nastiness.
      Adopting the same tone in
      your speech as you might normally use with your friends could come off
      as callous to those who don’t know the nature of your relationship.
   5. Ridicule The Bride – Make fun of the
      bride and earn the hatred of everyone in the room. All grooms should
      especially heed this rule. This is the day you are proclaiming to the
      world your everlasting love for your bride, and teasing – even teasing
      that seems harmless to you – can be risky. So before you include that
      joke about how clinically insane she seemed during the wedding planning
      or how you’re amazed by her ability to spend hours on the phone talking
      with her friends about nothing at all, button up. Your job is to make
      her feel like a princess.
   6. Flatter The Wrong Folks – This rule might also be called, Forgetting Whom The Wedding Day Is About.
      Danny’s brides three attendants all happened to be incredibly
      attractive women. Danny elected to open his speech – his first public
      address to his new bride – by pointing out that, no matter what course
      the marriage might take, they could at least always say they had the
      best damn good-looking bridesmaids ever. Um, yeah. Super. It’s the
      Bride’s Day. Remember?
   7. Tell Inside Jokes – Overload on inside
      jokes that only three people will get. You might make a quick reference
      or two to something private you and the toastee shared, but don’t
      overburden your speech with them. One measure of the good toast is the
      nod factor that is, the portion of the people in the crowd nodding along
      with you when you mention a certain quality the bride or groom
      possesses. Inside stories achieve the opposite: they make people say to
      their neighbour, What’s he talking about? So side-step sharing with the
      entire room memories of that crazy night in Montreal only you and the
      groom know about.
   8. Rely On Tired Cliches – Resort to
      cliches and hyperbole. Yawn. Cliche words or phrases (Your beautiful
      Inside and out) and blanket statements (You will never know what you
      mean to me) scatter in the air like so much dandruff.Get at the essence of the person about whom you’re speaking.
      1. Consider the person’s defining characteristics.
      2. Use specific anecdotes to demonstrate these characteristics.
      3. Identify an attractive aspect of the person only you know about – and share it.

Come up with words that resonate. Even if they aren’t the perfect words, they are yours.