Best Man Tips

As will be clear from what has been said above, not all wedding speeches end with or include toasts. The father of the bride toasts the bride and groom, the bridegroom toasts the bridesmaid, and that may be all.

However, if the bride speaks, she may like to toast her new parents-in-law or her husband; there may be a toast to absent friends after the best man reads out the well-wishers' messages; the bridegroom may toast his bride, or his in-laws. It is not necessary that everyone present join in these toasts: there is, for example, no reason why the groom cannot toast his bride alone, and no reason why the bride should not toast her in-laws, without the entire room having to get to their feet. But whenever such a personal toast is made, it should always be clear to the guests, from what the speaker says and does, that they are not involved and not expected to stand up and join in the toast. It would be embarrassing if half the guests stayed seated while the other half got to their feet somewhat uncertainly and were clearly unsure what to say or do.

When to propose the toast

A toast that the families and guests are to join in with need not come at the end of a speech, but that is definitely the best place for it. A well-constructed speech should in a way build up to the toast, and then once the toast has been proposed and drunk, everyone can settle down again and be ready to listen to the next speaker (if there is one).

There is probably an expectation that the toast will mark the end of the speech, and that is the format that we will be following in this guide, but you should not feel obliged to follow this convention if, for some reason, you want your speech plan to be different. People may be surprised, even slightly confused, by any change from what is normally done, but if you remain on your feet after the toast, it will be obvious to everyone that you have something more to say.

Personal toasts, however, may well come in the middle of a speech. For example, if a bridegroom decided to drink a toast to his bride as part of his speech, he could do that at any suitable point in his speech. In fact, given that he is going to toast the bridesmaid at the end of his speech, he really has to toast the bride at some point before that. In such a case, he would drink the toast to the bride on his own, without inviting the rest of the room to join him (everyone has just toasted the bride and groom at the end of the father of the bride's speech). The same might apply if the bride wanted to toast her new husband or her parents or parents-in-law during her speech, though she could make the toast at the end of her speech, since she is not concluding her speech with any other toast.

Who to look at when proposing a toast

If you are proposing a personal toast to someone, and not inviting others to join you, then you should look at and speak directly to that person: i.e., if the bride is toasting her new in-laws, she should look at them.

On the other hand, if you are inviting the guests to join with you in a toast, you should look at the guests when proposing the toast:

Ladies and gentlemen,
Please join me in drinking to the health and happiness of John and Julie.

and then turn towards the person or people being toasted as you name them again:

John and Julie.