5 Tips To A Better Toast

With the honor of being chosen the best man, comes the duty of giving a good wedding day toast. This is no easy task. Standing before your closest friends and family members to give a toast can be daunting, intimidating and down right nerve-wracking. Here are a few tips that you can use the next time you are called on to give your next toast.

1. Don’t Drink Beforehand. This might be difficult for a few of you, especially at festive occasions like a wedding party. However, the toast is your nod of appreciation for being selected the best man. The least you can do is be as coherent as humanely possible. This means lay off the booze. Syllables will flow and you’ll be able to articulate your words better than you would under the influence.

2. Prepare, Practice and Rehearse. This means have your toast written out. Practice saying the toast for at least a few days prior to the wedding. Once you think you’ve got it down, practice it in front of another person. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. Have a copy of your toast on hand with you on the wedding day … just in case.

3. Emphasize Key Parts. Emphasize as in be sure to slow down or speed up your toast accordingly. Make eye contact with the groom, bride and audience accordingly. If you’re going to tell a funny story about the groom, be sure to give the audience time to digest it and then laugh a little. Embarrassing moments are best left avoided. If you’re going to tell a heartfelt story, then you might want to slow down the speed of your speech a bit. Know the key parts of your toast and emphasize those parts.

4. Individualize The Audience. People usually are afraid when they have to speak in front of a large crowd. To minimize this anxiety, pick out a single person and devote 10 seconds of eye contact time during your speech to that one person and then move on to another person. Keep rotating. Individualize your audience. You’ll forget you’re speaking in front of a large crowd.

5. Keep It Brief and Concise. No one likes to sit through a long winded speech. Keep your toast brief and concise. A best man/maid of honor speech should take you no longer than 3-4 minutes max. If you’re not the best man/maid of honor then keep your toast at a minute max.

Hopefully, you’ll be able to use these tips the next time you’re asked to give a toast. Remember, it’s an honor to give a toast. A good toast will always leave a positive and lasting impression on those that you are toasting.

What tips do you have when it comes to giving a toast? Any memorable experiences?

Visual Aid Toast Poster

The Visual Aid Shop is a neat little poster site that features imagery that is meant to be useful. You wont find abstract art here. Instead, think of these as visual aid posters for THE most important things in life. Like how to use chopsticks.

While perusing the Visual Aid Shop I noticed a bunch of drink related posters. I’ve included a few of my favorites below. The posters are available in a variety of sizes up to 60 x 40 inches (1524 x 106 mm) and range in price from $8 to $68. All posters are unmounted on 190gsm Silk paper.

Buy Visual Aid Posters at the Visual Aid Shop.