Notes On A Wedding, Part 2 ~ A Few Good Men…

In part 2 of our new series 'Notes On A Wedding', Emma Woodhouse considers the role of the Best Man, or rather, Best Men speech.  Having attending a gazillion weddings already, she's seen a fair few speeches during her time as The Wedding Reporter

 

The days of the Best Man*
are limited being, as they are, encroached upon by the emergence of Best Men.
To begin with I thought that this rising trend was due to an unprecedented
number of grooms who are just too popular to pick one man for the job, but now
I’m thinking they might just incredibly naïve as they are giving themselves the
opportunity to be ridiculed by two friends rather than one.

The thing I like about
multiple best men is that as soon as I see them get up from their seats, my
heart rests easy knowing that this actually will be a humorous speech. As with
all great double acts and comedy troupes, half the battle is won by having
someone to play off – the Eric to his Ernie, the Canon to his Ball, the Barker
to his Corbett. When it’s just one chap on his own you can practically see the
nerves drip down his face in beads of sweat as he tries to gauge his audience,
but when there’s someone else sharing the burden, it seems to lift the mood
immediately.

03-Best-Man-Toast

Source:  Art of Manliness

I’ve also found that their speeches
are a bit more innovative. Whether this is because they have bounced more ideas
around together, got carried away with the parameters of their speech or just
felt buoyed by the prospect that they can blame the other if it all goes
pear-shaped remains to be seen. Nonetheless, best man partnerships have
incorporated some of the neatest use of multimedia that have not only left
their audience rolling in the aisles, but has also complimented the tone of
their speech.

I guess it might have
something to do with knowing that there is at least one other person in the
room who thinks the speech is funny, because they helped to write it. This kind
of writing partnership often means that the best men can find the tone of their
speech much more easily, as they have different perspectives on what their
audience will find relevant, amusing and appropriate.

Whether the best men are the
groom’s relations, his friends from different periods of his life or a mixture
of the two, the chances are that they are going to bring a different dynamic
from their shared experiences with him. For me, this is blissful as it avoids
the tendency to venture down what I like to call ‘In-Joke Avenue’ where
everyone smiles pleasantly but doesn’t have a clue what is being alluded to.

Of course, aside from the
speeches the decision to employ the services of several best men means that you
have an extra shoulder to lean on throughout the wedding planning process and a
spare pair of hands on the wedding day. 
In a purely logistical sense that might mean that you can cut down on
the amount of ushers or groomsmen you need and it also means there’s an extra
link in the chain between the groom and any potential hiccups that arise.

Personally, I’m a fan of
best men. I find the banter they create much funnier, I find the grooms that
they support to be slightly more relaxed and I find that they both feel
incredibly privileged to share the duty. Speeches are quite hard to write into
a wedding report as it can be up to an hour of monologues, so from a
professional perspective I enjoy having dialogue instead and enjoy watching
best men get seduced by the performance and try to outdo each other to get the
laughs.

One word of caution though –
don’t let them get too carried away. I recently heard that when Tom from McFly
got married, he had his three band mates as his best men. This seemed touching
and lovely until sweet-faced little Dougie got a little carried away in their
speech and said some really offensively unrepeatable
things, the likes of which grandparents certainly don’t need to be privy to.

It’s inevitable that when
boys get together they’re going to want to push the limits of common decency,
so perhaps you might want to consider employing an understudy best man, at the
very least to edit whatever they’ve got up their sleeve, if not step in
altogether at the last minute…

Emma
The Wedding Reporter

Heart 

 

* Disclaimer: Best Women are
equally as awesome, but for the purposes of making a nice title, I’ve stuck to
the gruffer sex for this article.

 

Emma-woodhouse-the-wedding-reporter

Annabel

Annabel View all Annabel's articles

Founder of Love My Dress. Passionate Podcaster and Editor. Annabel lives in rural North Yorkshire with her husband and business partner Philip, their two daughters and menagerie of furry hounds. She loves photography, meditation, walking, being outdoors and star gazing. She is fierce when it comes to championing talent within the wedding industry and when she's not working on Love My Dress, she supports her husband Philip in the running of the family's sustainable flower farm and floral design business, Moonwind Flowers. In 2013, she became a published author.

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