I
Remember The Time She Fell in the Loo…
The Speechwriter’s Guide to Preparing a Funny Father of the Bride Speech
By Brian Jenner
Published by Brian Jenner at Smashwords
Copyright 2010 Brian Jenner
At my wedding a year ago, my father gave a toast that went over like a lead balloon. He said (in paraphrase), ‘I've seen my daughter grow through the years and have had a few laughs, like the time she fell in the toilet as a small child. She was so mad at me for laughing at her, that I think maybe that's why it took her so long to find a man to marry.’ (I was 32 when I got married.)
From: www.Etiquettehell.com
About the Author
Brian Jenner was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford. After that he worked as a journalist on the Guardian, Telegraph and Daily Mail.
He has written two humour books, Men and Collections and I’m Just Phoning to Chase My Invoice.
He was a member of Toastmasters International for five years and he has written speeches for top politicians, businessmen and celebrities. He is the founder of the UK Speechwriters' Guild.
If you would like to enquire about his speechwriting services, visit www.thespeechwriter.co.uk.
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Task you Face
The Delivery
Creative Preparation: How to Get Started
Questions
Bad Taste
Good Taste
A Calculation
What a Speechwriter Does
Rhythm and Rhetoric
Contrasts
Lists of Three
Images
Gags
Quotations
Anecdotes
Dealing with Nerves
Speech Structure
Character
Composition
Opening Lines
In Praise of your Wife
Thanks
Venues
Advice
Fillers
Verse 28
Closing Remarks
Finishing Up
Editing
Checklist
Rehearsal
Preparation
The Performance
Sample Speech
Introduction
For the past ten years I have been writing wedding speeches for a living.
It’s been fun. I’ve had conversations with men about their fiancées, their wives, their daughters and their friends, giving me insights into their feelings and their attitudes.
If I was ever in danger of losing confidence in my service, I read copies of the speeches that clients were planning to deliver before I had any input. It’s not at all obvious how to write a good wedding speech.
The father of the bride speech is the most intriguing one to write. The thoughts of a best man are nearly always shallow and conventional, while the father of the bride has had the unique experience of bringing up his daughter. He has a special perspective and a story to tell.
As the father of the bride it’s your job to be wise and emotional. When I work for a client, I get the material for the speech by conducting an interview over the phone. I’m always curious. What are the father’s feelings towards his daughter? Did she rebel? What does he think of the groom? Is he hurting because the wedding is going to cost so much? Is he still married? What role is the wife playing in the proceedings?
As a speechwriter, you find every speech is different, but each time you write a script, you get closer to perfection. Perfection is a mixture of the personal and the contrived.
The contrived amounts to the best one-liners, set-up lines and fillers that have a predictable impact: the secret formulae that only someone who writes speeches all the time would bother to collect. The personal is the background information you get from the individual you’re writing the speech for.
This book contains the contrived lines I have picked up along the way and some tools to help you come up with your own appropriate material. Using this book it’s up to you to personalise that information, and craft your own speech.
The Task you Face
The father of the bride traditionally gives the first speech at the wedding. He’s followed by the groom and the best man. He is expected to give an insight into the character of his daughter, to say a few words about how he feels on this big day and to give his blessing to the marriage.
You want to give an original speech, without it being totally experimental. I advise all my clients to speak for seven minutes. Seven minutes is the ideal length for a social speech. We work together on their script then it’s up to the father of the bride to rehearse it. Adopting a good speechmaking pace, it takes a minute to read 120 words. That makes seven minutes to deliver 840 words.
So the task ahead of you is to read out 840 words. By the time it comes to the wedding, those 840 words you will have rehearsed over a dozen times. The prospect of doing a wedding speech, when described like that, is hardly daunting. Most nerves come from a fear of what could go wrong. Reading out 840 pre-prepared, familiar words, is not too difficult.
I divide the speech into blocks: a few lines to introduce the speaker, an opening joke, a line to set up the structure of the speech, some comments on why the bride and groom are so well matched, ending up with an emotional statement and a toast.
A speech is made up of lots of tiny ideas. It’s like a meal in an expensive restaurant. You don’t just pile on the sausages, potatoes and gravy. You serve up small portions, beautifully presented with sauces and other garnishes. It’s about using subtle flavours, not delivering bulk.
The added advantage of restricting yourself to 840 words is that it provides a creative discipline. It’s like packing your suitcase for the airport; you’ve got to make some tough decisions about what is absolutely necessary to take with you. That focuses the mind and forces you to be succinct and creative.
For me, composing a speech is like assembling an Airfix model. After interviewing the client in depth, I collect phrases and sentences which I copy and paste into a document. I then link all the phrases together using my own words as the glue.
My clients don’t want me to just summarise what they tell me. The former White House speechwriter Robert Orben talks about injecting ‘surprise, relevance and rhythm’ into a speech. Clients want to be supplied with funny or stylish ways of saying things. In speechwriting, we observe the experts and we imitate ideas until they are absorbed into our own personal way of doing things.
As the father of the bride, you have to find a way to say what you want in a style you feel comfortable with.
To write this book, I went through all my old speeches looking for the best one-liners, the best anecdotes, and the best way to phrase sentiments that are appropriate to all weddings.
As you read this book, put a small tick against the lines you like. When you’re ready to start writing, you can copy them into your own document to stimulate your imagination.
The Delivery
Learning to speak in public is like learning to dance or play golf. The people who excel practise regularly. It’s great if you have natural confidence, but all that is really required is a determination to learn from your mistakes. At a wedding, the guests are not expecting a stand-up comedian. They just want to hear a short speech with a few background details about the bride, and a few words that are appropriate to the occasion. As long as they can hear you, and you make sense, they will be pleased. They’re rooting for you to do well.
Ten minutes after you sit down, they will have forgotten 80% of what you said. So keep calm and do your best. Even if you feel like jelly, the audience will not be able to see your inner wobbliness. It’s actually quite difficult to spot the signs of nervousness; most people don’t pay close attention.
It’s more a temptation for a young best man than a father of the bride, but I’d like to stress that giving a speech is an old-fashioned ritual. It may sound like a good idea to show videos or project photographs, but it adds to the stress of an already stressful day. A wedding is when people feel traditional. To use audiovisual equipment is to create added hassle and it disturbs the natural flow of the wedding, so don’t bother.
If you want to get some regular public speaking practice before the day, you can join a public speaking club like those of Toastmasters International or the Association of Speakers Clubs―you can find them all over the world. You may discover that public speaking is a pastime you want to pursue. Then stick at it. It’s a very useful skill to have because if you can make a good wedding speech, you can do a good after dinner speech. If you can do a good after dinner speech, you can make a good memorial speech. If you can do a good memorial speech, you can do a keynote presentation at a conference. You will be much appreciated by clubs and societies, friends, family and your work colleagues.
Tip: Do stand up to deliver your speech―this may seem like an obvious point but I have seen many ‘seated’ speakers who could neither be seen nor heard.
Standing up also enables you to project your voice and make better use of body-language.
Symbolism
On a big day like your daughter’s wedding, ponder the symbolism of the occasion. A wise man once said, ‘when a young man marries, he divorces his mother.’ In the same way, when a daughter gets married, she transfers her loyalties away from her father to her husband.
It’s not always easy to let go. In the film About Schmidt, the Jack Nicholson character is appalled by his daughter’s choice of husband. He attempts to talk his daughter out it. When that fails, he tries to sabotage the wedding, but it doesn’t work.
In Shakespeare’s Othello, Brabantio’s daughter, Desdemona, marries Othello without his consent. He expresses anger and outrage that his daughter has married a black man, but Desdemona points out that fathers take second place to husbands. King Lear demands his daughters to declare undying love for him, but Cordelia disappoints him. She says that her dad is her dad. When she’s married, her husband comes first. So it’s a sad day for the father of the bride.
He may be tempted to express his reservations―but this is not the time or the place. Be philosophical. There’s a Jewish saying that goes, ‘One of life’s great mysteries is how the boy who wasn’t good enough to marry your daughter can be the father of the smartest grandchild in the world.’
This is a significant moment in your life and your daughter’s life. It’s not the end, it’s a new beginning. Why has the tradition of the father of the bride giving a speech sprung up? Because the audience wants some background to the star of the day. We want to know what she was like as a daughter. We’d like to find out how she developed as a character, we’d like a flavour of the drama of bringing up a child. We would also like to know how the father of the bride feels on this big day. The best way to do this is not by reading out list of achievements, but by telling stories that reveal the nature of your bond.
Creative Preparation: How to Get Started
Questions
For many fathers, the hardest part is getting started. Whenever someone books me to write a speech for them, I make an appointment to do an interview. I warn them that I’m looking for humorous stories. I’m amazed at how often they say their mind is completely blank. They can’t remember any funny stories.
So I use these questions below to get going. I allow the speaker to digress, and I follow up anything unusual he mentions.
You can ask yourself the same questions and jot down your own answers. Write out the answers to these questions, because as you write, more details and ideas will come to you. For reasons I will explain later, I’m always looking out for good stories, snapshot memories of the bride, unusual aspects of her character and anecdotes about how she has changed since he has met the groom.
Questions for the Father of the Bride
What is the venue?
Is it a religious service?
What is your daughter’s name?
Why did you give her this name?
What is her date of birth?
Did anything else happen of significance on that day (check Wikipedia)?
How has her life compared to her sister or brother?
What’s your wife’s name?
How long have you been married?
Was you daughter a good toddler?
Was she good about doing homework?
Did she rebel as a teenager?
Did she go to university?
How did you feel on the day that you dropped her off for the first time?
Did you give her driving lessons? How did that go?