My first time making a wedding toast!
I was asked by a good friend of mine to make a wedding toast. That mean public speaking (where is the horrified emoji when I need one!) to a relatively large group of people about my friend, the bride. I would have to stand up and face the crowd, open my mouth and speak clearly what I plan to say in the way people can understand. Then, all other details like who are the audience, is the topic relevant, the structure of the speech, what is the time given to the toast and etc. Fun exciting stuff!
Not that I haven't done similar fun things before...
I have certain expectations to myself and I like to make thing hard, haha. I set myself a goal that there will not be notes or cue cards during my toast. It would be straight out from my memory.. No, I don't have great memory.
Audience has been identified. It ranges from the groom/bride, their immediate family (eg. parents, siblings, children, etc), their friends and the strangers (friends' friend, couples parents' friends, etc).
The topic would be revolved around my good friend, the bride who asked me to make a toast.
Duration of toast was given to me, around 2-3 minutes.
The setting and environment. I presumed it could be on the stage (given from my past experience). So I need to work on any stage fright. Not that I have any but at least I am prepare :). I assume there would be a microphone available as it is likely a mid size crowd. As it turns out, I was given a microphone at my dinner table, which is less intimidating, good.
My friend was awesome enough to let me know way ahead of time to prepare for a toast. When I got the request, I started deliberating about what to say. Weeks after weeks, I came up with some ideas while driving to work and wrote it in my note if I still remember after I reached home. I scratched out some and added some. Only to the last week right before the wedding, I got the final draft. Phew! The way I organized the toast is by breaking it down into three parts. Because two seems too few and four sounds a lot, haha. And making them into parts help me remember and transition what to say next.
I made the opening speech simple and straight forward in two sentences. Everyone already know what a wedding toast is and has certain expectation anyway.
Body. Three parts about my friends;
1) Persistence and talented
2) Genuine and a great friend
3) Unique and special
Closing is again as simple as by congratulation the bride and groom on their new journey.
Now is time building the story up to emphasize the points. This would be something relate dearly to the bride and experience we both shared. Then examine if the content too dry or too personal. Needs some sort of balance. Find ways to make audience continue paying close attention to my toast and not fell asleep. Identify places where I can include jokes and what type of jokes. Changing tone, pitch and the pace are some great techniques I saw great speaker or comedian did. I saw my older brother could turned a down to earth statement into something really funny just with the way he said and expressed it. Yes, he is my idol.
With the toast draft prepared, now is time for practice! Practice makes perfect. Just right about a week before the wedding, I started practicing the toast multiple times a day while working, in restroom doing business, during my lunch time, while driving to work/home, right before I sleep, whenever I get a chance. Then I experimented and improvised with different tone, jokes and body language. One thing I realize is, if I pretend to be a comedian and speak the way with slightly more humor and confident, I can feel a difference it changes the mood and feeling of the speech.
With all the preparation, I am ready! Well, not until I felt sick and started losing my voice the day before wedding. I still remember waking up in the morning on the wedding day and I almost completely lost my voice. I have never lost my voice! I remember mommy asking why was I talking to myself. She didn't know I would be making a toast and I was trying to test my voice but it was just so awful.
Not that I could do anything since there was a whole day of travelling and activities with kids we have planned for the day. I remained hopeful.
Toward the evening at the wedding ceremony, I gained some voice back, but still awful. How did I do with my toast? I think I focus more on attempting to speak louder and clearer with my sore voice. But I think I slowly gained some composure back towards the end and paced the speech better. Was I satisfied? Heck ya. I believe I spoke within the given times (slightly less than 4 minutes), I remembered the entire script and spoke it without notes. Throughout the toast, when I looked at the audience, they seemed to have their eyes on me. That means they are either paying attention or just clueless of what I said. At least I got their attention haha. I also heard some chuckles here and there, and the groom came to me after my toast acknowledging some part of my jokes. Awesome!
I did good enough and served my duty. More importantly, congrats to my friend and her newlywed husband!
For folks who want to do fun things like this, check out toastmaster.
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