Free Tips – Wedding Speeches
So you have a speech to do! You know it is on the horizon and you don’t know where to start and you are nervous beyond belief. The main thing going through your mind is speaking in front of a huge audience.
Having been a DJ for over 20 yrs and seen everything here are some free tips on how to make it the best it can be.
1. Speak CLEARLY and SLOWLY – consciously slow yourself down during the speech. Many people will speak fast almost in a unconscious effort to get the speech done. Speak at nearly half of the speed you would normally speak so the audience can hear your words clearly and understand what you are trying to say.
2. Pauses and emotion are natural! – This is a wedding and as such an incredibly emotional time for many people. Do not let some pauses and flowing emotions like crying make you think your speech is ruined. This is so very natural and the crowd will understand. Realize that the crowd will be feeling the emotion as well and move on.
3. Repeat bullet points in your head – Example – You realize that you want to cover your time in college with the bride and groom, you want to talk about how proud you are of them both and you want to give a toast.
Simply repeat – College, proud, toast……college proud toast…. over and over in your mind prior to the speech and you won’t get tripped up.
4. SPEAK INTO THE MICROPHONE – As a DJ my number one pet peeve is handing a microphone to a speaker and watching them slowly allow their hands and microphone to drop down nearly to their waist. The crowd will not be able to hear you then!
5. Don’t draw attention to a mistake – If you make a mistake just carry on. Don’t draw attention to it. Often a crowd won’t realize you made a mistake unless you stop and try to repeatedly correct yourself..
6. Short but sweet! This is best one of all. You don’t have to make it long! A long drawn out speech will leave some of the crowd yawning as details of that time the bride burned the eggs on the stove and poured beer on them. I tell all brides and grooms that if you have 6 speakers each take 10 mins —— you just killed an hour of precious time.
Hopefully this will help you in your efforts to put your best foot forward during a speech.
Doug Russell
Sound Dynamix