MORE: See our Ultimate Guide to Wedding Speeches for everything you need to know about giving a wedding speech or toast.
Before making it to center stage at your loved one’s wedding, consider this toasting etiquette to come off polished and pleasing to your bride and groom.
- Be Prepared.Decide who is toasting, in which order, and what you will say well in advance of the wedding.
- Be Sincere.Use your own words and speak from the heart. This will be easier for you to remember and mean more to the couple than a toast borrowed from a book.
- Be Brief. Keep the toast within a two to three minutes time frame. (Hey, com’on, anyone can memorize a two minute toast.)
- Be Tactful. Refrain from embarrassing the couple on their special day. The groom’s broken heart from an old girlfriend, the bride’s nose job, first marriages, what happened during the bachelor/bachelorette party, all should be left out of the toasts.
- Be Complimentary. After all, the whole purpose of a toast is to say something nice about the people being honored.
- Be Practiced. Practice the toast, in front of a mirror, without your notes. (Remember that if you are holding a glass in one hand and the microphone in the other, you would need a third arm to read from your notes!!)
- Be Clear-headed. Nerves and memory are not aided by alcohol. Avoid the spirits until after you have successfully delivered your toast.
- Be Mannerly. Sip your champagne. Wedding toasts are not a chug-a-lug contest. Your glass should not need to be refilled after each toast. Also, clinking should be done with care. Unlike beer mugs, crystal is quite delicate.
- Be Connected. Look at the couple and the guests while speaking slowly and clearly.
- Be Charming. Remember to raise your glass during the toast and sip from your glass at the end of the toast.
MORE: See our Ultimate Guide to Wedding Speeches for everything you need to know about giving a wedding speech or toast.
- Groom’s Speech. Our Guide to writing and delivering an amazing Groom wedding speech. See Groom speech examples too.
- Best Man Speech. Helping the best man create an awesome best man speech. With example best man speeches too.
- Maid of Honor Speeches. How to come up with a great maid of honor speech. Example maid of honor speeches included.
- Father of the Bride Speech. Your daughter’s getting married. Here’s to delivering a heartfelt speech. Includes examples.
- Example Toasts & Speech Quotes. One liners, funny quotes, love parables and much more in our examples section.
- Top Wedding Speech & Toasts Blog Posts. The latest blog posts about wedding speeches and toast. Stay up to date.
Jodi R. R. Smith, owner of Mannersmith, is an etiquette consultant answering wedding etiquette questions for our sister site Pop the Questions.
