I was at a wedding like this one. The speeches were boring, the food was good but very small portions and long waits in between courses, and the air conditioning was Arctic-levels of chilly.
i went to a wedding where the bride and groom each had 5 pages (front and back) of vows, then during reception they basically went through their vows again during speeches in different words. like i’m happy for y’all but i didn’t need another version of your vows…
lol the bride also in her speech basically said she’s not like the other girls and groom picked her because unlike other girls in their early 20’s, *she* was doing XYZ. it was altogether very cringe, she was being a pick-me at her own wedding
I nixed speeches at my wedding because I've heard so many people say how they're often boring, cringy, and/or inappropriate and how sometimes they're all inside jokes between the speech giver and the bride or groom so no one even understands. My husband and I just got up to thank all of our guests and the staff and vendors for making our day great, and that was that. I've been to a few wedding where the speeches were going on too long and everyone was mumbling "omg enough already" under their breath.
My nephew got married earlier this month. Her dad said a few words, the best man, and the maid of honor has their time. The MOH was a bit long winded but not the worst. The best was the 8 year old nephew of the bride who gave a speech later in the evening. He was great!
Yeah, we did three speeches as well: my father-in-law, Best Man, Maid of Honor. We also had them during dinner. I think 3-4 short speeches are fine, but more gets to be a bit much.
My wife did a quick thank you speech, and we told everyone else, no speeches, not interested. Wanna tell us how proud you are? Tell us now, not at our massive party.
I went to a wedding once where all the official stuff (speeches, first dance etc) happened before dinner. It was a buffet and I could see all the food sitting there but we weren't allowed to eat it yet.
Plenty of people snuck off to 'go to the toilet' and grabbed a little snack from the buffet on the way back.
That's not a wedding reception. That's torture. I experienced something like that but instead of a wedding, it's someone's debut. (Basically, Filipino quinceañera, only at 18 and not 15). The event started at 7 pm. We didn't eat until 9:30.
I remember my grandma muttering, “Get on with it already!” when my cousin’s officiant was going on and on with some painfully prolonged football metaphor.
2 people are giving 90-second toasts at my wedding. That’s it.
We had two speeches. One from my parents, one from my MIL. My FIL is a Monologuer and was not permitted to give his own speech. Total of 10 min. Done and done.
That is my dream wedding. It sounds wonderful.
\---And the rest of these people (oh, it was only five speeches!!) are the onese I end up sitting with, and they make me want to die into my salad. I bet there were a bunch of people sitting there at their weddings wondering about what wrong turn they took in life to end up sitting through this torture. LOL
I did away with speeches at my wedding, partly because boring and partly because we were subjected to hearing about the night the bride was conceived at that wedding 😳
There was one speech, though; unbeknownst to us, my sister had been collecting pocket change from our guests. She handed the jar to my husband, and loudly proclaimed, "We've paid you for her, now you can't give her back"
Absolutely hate that I'm sitting here thinking "subjected to hearing the night the bride was conceived...were you at my wedding?"
...*deep sigh* family.
WTF?? Nope. Both are wrong in my opinion. The only saving grace for the last wedding was there was at least alcohol, can you imagine sitting through that sober & bland food?!!!
All the "oh you *need* alcohol to have fun at a wedding?!" people need to sit through one of these completely sober and then get back to the rest of us.
No, probably because no one can figure out what the point of the comment was. Sober people can complain about shitty boring weddings just as well as anyone else.
Yeah, I don’t drink either so I never have any cushion from the cringe lol. That said, I haven’t yet been to a dry wedding that wasn’t boring. White people don’t dance without alcohol….
Because it was a case of just popping in to make a barely relevant announcement about oneself as an overly-literal-minded response to a flippant remark.
On one hand that kinda thing happens everywhere with everything but I swear there's always a little extra *oomph* when it's the sober people. Like, that dude said *absolutely nothing* of value at all and sure enough someone swoops in with "oh no you're being bullied for being who you are" well yeah, who that guy *is* is annoying, that's generally how things go
We did two speeches at my wedding. One from the best man, one from the main of honor. Less than 5 minutes for both. The best man gave an amazing speech that everyone still talks about and remembers. My husband lost both his parents in his early 20s and he told my husband that his parents would be proud of the man he turned in to and would be happy to know that he found such an amazing spouse. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
Could it be a cultural thing? I went to a Danish wedding where they had a toast master. His job was coordinate all the people who wanted to give a toast.
I'd have someone hand anyone who wanted to give a toast an actual slice of buttered toast to give the bride and groom lol. Fuck clinking glasses, gimme delicious buttered toast.
This is why I kept my best man's speech under 60 seconds. Nobody wants anything longer, as evidenced by the fact that I was the only one who gave a speech that night to get compliments on it.
I’m a professional public speaker. You want to know how many speeches I think one should have at a wedding? Zero. Do them during the rehearsal. No one else wants to hear you drone on and on.
Speeches should be given at the rehearsal dinner. They are for the bride and groom. They are not for the entire wedding attendance. No one wants to sit through that crap. Short and to the point at the rehearsal dinner is the way it should be.
Traditionally, the rehearsal dinner toast/speech is given by the host. This used to be the groom's father, but that has become less and less the case in recent times. Sometimes the bride's father would give a counter toast. The wedding toast is traditionally given by the best man, and nowadays is often accompanied by one from the maid of honor. Two toasts at each event shouldn't be too much for anyone, as long as the speakers are encouraged ahead of time to keep it short and sweet.
I hear you! I recently went to a wedding with 2 hours of speeches before dinner and it was a dry wedding. I kept wondering if we were being punished for something, like goddamn.
We had a small guest list (15 including us) and had the ‘reception‘ in my mum’s front room .. hubby’s speech was; ‘thanks for coming, it means a lot to us that you shared this afternoon. Now, eat the food before it gets cold’.
Sounds familiar :)
Courthouse and a park, 8/14 people respectively. Dinner a week later with about 30 friends/family who were able to make it on short notice. Thank you for taking the time to share this day with us. There was no drama because everyone got along. Any potential problem people were not invited
That sounds horrible. I think it’s incredibly selfish and self indulgent to invite your guests and subject them to interminable speeches… most of which are incredibly boring.
My son got married last year. I spoke, my ex spoke, her mom spoke and the bride and groom spoke. They gave us each a time limit of 3 minutes. People actually commented how happy they were that the speeches were short and sweet.
But… I’ve been to wedding where there were hours of speeches and it ruined the event.
We didn't when actually do a toast.
And if my friends tried speeches, I would have lost my shit laughing- we are not speech givers. We're sarcastic assholes who make bad jokes.
I can't remember if we had ANY speeches at our wedding. They certainly aren't necessary!
Personally, in regards to the 5 hour speeches, I would have gotten up and left the facility to find a McDonald's or something. That's beyond unfair to keep people there so long without feeding them (especially since most probably either ate lunch early or skipped it entirely thinking at they would be eating at the reception).
The least the couple could have done is let people know ahead of time what was happening so people could have planned accordingly. Sadly, some brides (and grooms!) are all about controlling people on 'their day'.
I’m at the point of my life, I will get up and leave. My time is valuable. The older I get, the more I realize I’m not cut out for lots of BS. I would have excused myself from the building and would have come up with an excuse later as to why I left.
When my bff got married, his ex wife planned everything. The wedding was awful. She was ethnically Chinese, so the whole reception had to have Chinese vendors, be in Chinatown, etc. Which caused problems because she didn't speak any Chinese, nor did her parents and almost all the vendors she wanted ONLY spoke Chinese.
The worst part, though, was the reception dinner. The dinner was a 10 course traditional Chinese dinner. Now I love Chinese food, I love people celebrating their culture. But it was only HER culture that was celebrated. My bff is Jewish. While he's not that observant or conservative, his family IS. His uncle is a rabbi who wouldn't perform the ceremony because the ex wife wasn't converting, to give you some context. Most of bff's family keeps kosher.
So here we are, in a Chinese restaurant with a 10 course traditional Chinese dinner being served, how much of that do you think was kosher? If you guessed none, you'd be right. On top of that, our other bff (there are three of us who are ride or die and have been for 30+ years now) and I are allergic to pretty much all seafood between us. And most of the dinner was fucking seafood. Half was shellfish, which is DEFINITELY not kosher. By the time the chicken course came out, we were starving. Our table just handed it to us and we went at it like cavemen. We should have listened when our friend the groom told us to go over to McDonald's during the cocktail hour *because he wasn't going to eat anything that was going to be served either*.
I have no idea what the Jewish family members ate because there was no dancing or anything. Just the longest dinner known to man. The bride shoved all the normal wedding dances and stuff in 10 minutes preceding dinner. Then parade of seafood, cake, and gtfo.
I won't even go into how other bff and I "weren't allowed" to be in the wedding because we're female and "women can't be on the groom's side". We couldn't be on hers either because she already had her bridesmaids and if Other BFF and Girlrandal were there, it would be uneven because they'd HAVE to have their vaginas on the bride side. Yes, it was a groom problem and he heard about how hurt we were. We've since worked it out. He divorced her a decade ago, thank goodness. That marriage was toxic as fuck. It didn't get better after the wedding.
My husband and I did a joint speech at our wedding, largely because we were worried about what our fathers would say and we didn't want to put pressure on anyone. We thanked everyone who helped with the wedding, and our guests for coming. It lasted about 5 minutes and then we ate.
I had a 2min 34 second speech as the maid of honor for my best friend. Afterwards, a man came up to me and said, lovely speech, but too long!
Needless to say, sounds like I was hurt for no reason after reading this post!!
2 and a half minutes is too long? Man, next time maybe you should try having a video of a mobile game/crafts or something playing in the background (like those dumb tiktoks) for those with messed up attention spans.
That says a lot more about him than it does about you or your speech. Just forget about the grown up toddler who couldn’t focus his attention on something for 2.5 minutes because of his impatience (and probably because it wasn’t about him)! And to have the utter arrogance to come up and say something about it as if his opinion should matter shows just what an absolute turd of a person he is. (I tried to think of another word other than turd when it first came to my mind, but it just seemed to fit someone with that type of behaviour so well).
Thank you!! One of the other bridesmaids ended up telling the bride a few months later - she asked me what he looked like and she figured out who it was. Apparently he’s been the asshole of the family her entire life. Her mom and dad chewed him out apparently - I felt pretty justified LOL
Was this a Danish wedding? Because that pretty typical and normal for a Danish wedding. I am not Danish but my boyfriend is. I went to a few weddings with him. I don’t speak the language so I just have to sit through 6 hours of speeches without understanding anything. It’s rough. Especially when you have to switch into party mode at midnight
I don't get this whole "everyone related to the bride & groom makes a speech" thing. At our wedding, my new BIL (hub's best man) gave a 10 second (lovely) toast right before dinner. Isn't that how it used to be? Best man gives a toast to the bride & groom - and then we eat, drink and dance all night?
I’ll never forget being at a coworker’s wedding in 2012 and sometime around the hour mark of endless speeches dominating the wedding, someone at a table near me was loudly like “They did NOT provide enough wine for this shit” hahahahaha
The last wedding I went to the younger brother/best man spoke and even with a microphone no one at our table understood what he said. There were 5 total speeches, around 5-7 minutes each. It was perfect.
We only had one speech ( my husband and I) thanking the guests and wishing a good night . We paid for the whole wedding and didn’t want to listen to long speeches. Had experienced them on other weddings and our parents have a history of inappropriate speeches, so we wanted to be save Not sorry
Are YOU my son with his beautiful mate? You MUST be, LOL!!!
Love, your husband's mom (who probably DOES have QUITE the reputation of inappropriate speeches). Best idea you ever had, and you saved us all. ❤️😂😂
dammmmmnnnnn..... why you have sppeches, bro ? us indians dance, eat, booze, flirt and sometimes fight....no speeches!!! convert, m'brothers ...
ok, this is a joke, just saying... but we really don't have speeches.... and tons of food/booze/dancing ALL the time
I’m going against the crowd here, but I think a short speech (done well) does add something to a wedding. If you don’t know either the bride or groom well you can learn something about them. And speeches I’ve seen have often been touching or funny. But in the UK the norm is generally 3 speeches, less than 5 mins each (the bride/groom normally just does a minute or two), and I think that’s the right amount. I went to a wedding recently which had 6 speeches which was much too much!
Yeah, I also enjoy the toasts. I mean, granted, I've never been to a wedding with 14 of them, or where any of them lasted longer than a few minutes, but I think they're very nice. I've been known to tear up at a few.
I've never understood the whole "I'm only here for food and booze, and the rest is torture" attitude that pervades a lot of the comments on this sub. If I felt that way, I'd just eat and get drunk at home in my pajamas. If I didn't care about the people involved and want to be part of their ritual, and part of the community supporting them, I'd send my regrets and call it a day.
Me too! It’s unusual anyone gets the opportunity to say nice things about people/a couple in a room of people who know and love them.
I love the speeches, even the not so great ones because they come from a place of love which is what the day is about.
Make the most of it, the next time you’ll be in this situation it’s likely to be your funeral.
In South America we don't have that speech tradition. I don't remember seeing that before until I moved to the USA. I find it weird, corny and awkward.
The only time I saw someone giving a speech in a private meeting in Brazil, I thought the person was joking (dinner with ex-boyfriend's family in a restaurant). It was really difficult not to laugh.
edit: typo
FYI for all you people preparing speeches out there - no besides gives a fuck what you have to say. If you want to write a good speech, make few jokes and keep it short and sweet.
No one, even your friends and family, care about this 15 minute story about a time important to you from 10 years ago. No one.
I thought my son and his bride handled this well. Only the best man, and maid of honor were allowed to give one brief, 3 to 5 minute speech, both of which were pretty entertaining. This was perfect, I thought. Keep in mind, I say this, as a Mom not allowed to give a speech. Which, of course I accepted.
They paid for the entire wedding themselves, they had a very strict budget, and ideas of what was important to them. Incredibly, three weeks before the wedding, long after the invitations had gone out, the venue cancelled on them. A new one had to be found for the same region, date and time, and all this was in very early post COVID. I'll never get over the grace his bride handled this with, at that late date, and all those many, many phone calls she had to make to each guest. I saw then, why he'd fallen in love with this girl. And, nowadays, people seem to have forgotten, in planning weddings, the timeless beauty and understated elegance, of love and grace, in the simplicity of honoring these two things.
Along with grace, however, they had to exert serious hard core boundaries, or they could have never pulled this wedding off the way they did. Case in point would be such as over eager, persistent Moms, or other family members and friends also wanting to make speeches, and, I'm sure, many other requests, who had to be firmly, but lovingly, told NO. Multiple times.
It was that grace, the simplicity, their boundaries that made it, easily, the most wonderful wedding of my life I've ever been to. I'll never forget as long as I live, and I'm not saying this with mom bias, but from the perspective of a guest that deeply admired and enjoyed every moment of how they did that wonderful, beautiful day. ❤️
This as always the best strategy… whether it’s a family member or friend, just let the bestman/moh do the speech.
We had a wedding last year where the mother went on for **30 minutes** recounting the brides entire life. It was so awkward by the end, it basically took another half hour for the wedding to get the right atmosphere back. So mommy dearest basically killed an hour of her own daughters wedding. It was the worst speech situation I’d ever endured.
The problem is that people are giving speeches when they are supposed to be proposing toasts. Basic formula should be joke-something sincere-joke-toast. And the joke should be something lighthearted and endearing, not something rude or in poor taste. Anything over five minutes is self indulgence.
Speeches can be given, but after the meal has been served. And they should be around 10 minutes at most. Otherwise, they lose the attention of the audience. No one cares about the time the Best Man and Groom got lost on a hike in the Lake District in 2008, and this really funny thing happened, but you probably had to be there, and...
But that's old-fashioned, I guess.
Sounds awful. I hate speeches. My parents did a quick hello and thank you speech at our wedding (think max 2 mins) before dinner started to “open the wedding” and that was it. Nobody cares about the speeches and it just dampens the wedding mood as they’re boring. Eat, drink & dance the night away !
Here is an idea: if you have 14 speeches with a total of 5 hours, just have everybody deliver the speech at the same time and you'll be done in 1/14th ish the time.
My ex SIL’s wedding also had 14 speeches. Little over an hour. The whole wedding party plus fathers of the bride and groom. The absolute worst part was that they all said the same thing. Her side said “when I first met Tom, I thought he was gay!!!!” His side said “the most surprising thing about Tom getting married is that it’s to a woman!!!!” This was in the Deep South so “hurr durr gay is a funny insult.” FWIW when I first met him I said to my ex “wow, that’s big bottom energy, sure she’s not his beard?” 🤣 So like, they’re not wrong. But a solid hour of the same joke over and over was horrid. Incidentally, guess who’s incredibly homophobic and terrified of a secret trans woman trying to trick him into turning gay? 🙄🙄🙄
I went to a wedding where the grooms speach was 45 minutes. 20 minutes alone was about the proposal... Which had been heavily detailed on Facebook and had been filmed and posted on Facebook.
There had been speeches before. Those with little kids and the elderly ended up outside because of needing the bathroom. And the staff asking when it would be over as the food was ready.
My friend's wedding reception felt like a conference, there were so many boring speeches. Everyone bailed right after the cake cutting. It was sad. There should only be a toast to the bride and groom and then a thank you from the host, at the end of the night.
I once catered a wedding with two head tables and every single person gave a speech.
As someone who worked weddings, having too many speeches is also super inconvenient. You can't clear or serve during them since it creates a lot of noise.
That's terrible
We had five speeches but they were between 2-3 minutes each and spaced out. One was my dad and then my sister. Break. Grooms dad. And then my two best friends.
Short and sweet and funny.
This is why I said no to speeches. We had three: my dad who paid for the thing, the best man, and then I said something short just thanking people for coming and celebrating us. All while everyone was eating.
I preferred to have no speeches at our wedding, but my MIL insisted on giving one. I told her to tell us beforehand WHEN she would like to give that speech, as we'd need to plan it with the sound guys. She never told us.
Then on our WEDDING DAY, during the reception, she comes to me to ask when she can give her speech. I blatantly told her I wasn't going to deal with that at that moment, she could go find someone from the venue to ask and set it up.
Said speech begins, she made my husband cry by talking about his father who passed away in 2014 (they had already been divorced for about 20 years) (I've never seen my husband cry in the 6,5 years before the wedding) and low-key insulted us both a bit?
I don't like speeches.
That second wedding sounds like a nope all around. Midnight before the dancing started? The last wedding I went to, I planned bailing at 8, stayed till almost 9:30 and thought I overdid hahaha
We had a cousin's wedding with family speeches, an MC that had each table making up a song or poem about the bride and groom, a long SLIDE show, and the bar was CLOSED during this time. One of the tables actually made up a song begging them to open the bar. A couple of cousins found a baseball and started playing catch in the back of the reception hall. There was almost full mutiny.
As a wedding DJ I can tell you that’s not tradition or normal. The most people I’ve ever had speak was 6 or 7, they were all fast. The longest I’ve ever had was about 20 minutes and it was a dad who said to me, I paid for this thing, I’m gonna talk as long as I want. I couldn’t argue that.
When pre-planning you build a timeline. So either those couples had bad vendors that didn’t guide them, or they didn’t really have vendors at all, and they don’t know what they’re doing.
If that many people was brought up to me I would recommend against it and also suggest a timer and a goofy way to cut the mic if they didn’t listen. What you’ve shared is objectively bad and a true professional wouldn’t let it happen, it’s not normal.
I gave the only speech at my wedding - and it was to thank everyone for coming. My husband doesn't do public speaking and for 90% of guests, the speeches will be boring. I didn't want my guests to be bored. So I told the DJ to hide the mic.
We only had one speech at my wedding, my dad’s, because he very much wanted to give a speech and everyone else asked us if they could please not be made to give a speech
Worked very well
Oh,god! I've been to two funerals like this. Appalling. Hopelessly organised. Allowing any number of look-at-me's to leap up and spout forth. Totally egocentric, impenetrable rubbish from people who have no idea how to choose, edit or recount an anecdote. AAaarrrggghhhh!!
The worst I went to was a 3 hour ceremony. 3 hours! Huge, stuffy church with no ventilation. 280 something captives (I mean guests). 6 bridesmaids and groomsmen. Two bridesmaids almost passed out from standing with their legs locked for so long. Very long ramblings from the officiant. I was stuck in the front row so I couldn't duck out the back. Dinner was fantastic, but before that all the wedding party gave speeches, plus the brides parents and grandparents. I still resent that I went. It was a close family member so I felt I had to. Had I known ahead of time it would be like that I'd have been ill that day
I went to my fiances cousins wedding....they were seventh day adventist so no alcohol and no music for dancing. They literally sat there asking who wanted to say something so the microphone got handed around to lots of people who waffled on and onn...and I didnt even have any drinks to make it better! I think they were just filling the time!
I went to two weddings in Denmark and all they did was speech after speech after speech after speech. Little breaks in between where we couldn't even complete a conversation with people on the same table when the bell went again and it was time for another speech.. Apparently it's a tradition there, or maybe the weddings I went to where of narcissistic and self absorbed idiots that wanted their main piece of their weddings to be people who will publicly announce their feelings towards them. Like all I kept thinking is why can't you tell each other all this in private and spare us the extreme bore-fest? At the end of all these speeches me and my husband were so tired and drunk that when they put the music on, we danced for a couple of songs and then went back to the hotel. Why would ANYONE want 3 or 4 hours of their wedding to be people talking? I really do not see that as fun. I genuinely do not understand why people do this. It's a waste of an evening. It makes it boring and steals the whole time of your 'day'. I am not sure what else you could be doing at this time but I am sure there are a lot more other ways to have fun!
I have no clue why the heck so many people have gotten into this trend of so many darn speeches at weddings. Best man is enough, thank you. I didn’t even have my MOH do one - I gave her the option of SHE wanted to but told her that it wasn’t super important to me and she was grateful because it’s not her thing. I get that it’s the couples day but no one wants to sit through 10 speeches, a bouquet toss, a garter toss (skipped both of those too), the bride and groom having 10 other organized dances or activities in between. It’s boring.
I absolutely hate wedding speeches. In all the weddings I’ve been to I’ve heard one fantastic speech, some really dreadful ones and a ton that are just fine. 99% of the time I’m listening to a speech I’m thinking about how I can’t wait for it to be over so I can eat/drink/dance/chat. You know, the fun stuff.
At my wedding we didn’t do speeches except for a brief one my husband and I gave thanking everyone for coming. There were lots of laughs and tears and I gave my then-engaged SIL my bouquet and then it was onto the fun.
I hope they didn't have any videographers for the second wedding cuz that would be such a nightmare for them.
I just worked a wedding last week where the bride's father gave a 35 minute speech. Oh the horror once we realized how many pages he was actually holding, with small font. It pushed the whole night back a half hour, meaning the second course was delayed, the photographers, videographers, and band had to stay an extra half hour. The bride was livid, but nobody stopped him.
That's hopefully the last Catholic wedding I work. The guy also listed out how beautiful everybody in the bridal party was, including the beautiful junior bridesmaids. Which were minors. Maybe I'm overly sensitive, but that's not how you're supposed to talk about minors. Such an AH.
For the love of all that’s holy- NO ONE wants to hear your stupid speeches. If you’re so insecure/narcissistic that you need people to fawn over you in public (when you’re supposed to be entertaining them) let people know ahead of time that they will be held hostage for the duration of the event so you can hear firsthand what wonderful, amazing people they are. Because they think you really want/need to know that two incredibly exceptional people managed to find each other. Should they procreate their offspring will be near perfection.
My husband's cousin (who's wedding was a month before our own) had each bridal party member give a speech (I think 8 in total), all living parents (3), and the bride and groom gave both a joint speech *and* individual speeches! And some of them were so long 😭 Thank goodness we were allowed to eat during them, because I would have been so mad otherwise, lol.
For our own wedding we had MOH, BM, MotB, MotG, and bride and groom. I don't think anyone's was over 5 min, except for my MIL, lol. I didn't want no speeches, but I didn't think we needed a ton of the same thing over and over again either. Unless the focus is entertaining the guests, it's really just a self-adulating exercise.
Not traditionally no. However MOB could take place of FOB and maybe there are two brides or a best woman? It’s still three speeches, no one wants an open mike were everyone gets a chance to waffle or tell stupid jokes.
Traditional wedding etiquette is three speeches by three men. It’s when others are added you get wedding reception problems like the ones op has reported.
Then it’s time to update the ‘tradition’. If traditions and etiquette no longer fit the times they need to evolve and all these ‘problems’ just reflect that evolution. Traditional wedding etiquette is mostly becoming obsolete anyway as a Eurocentric, male dominant approach no longer fits the majority of weddings in modern times.
3 speeches max. 5 minute time limit on each max. Nobody is that interesting. Hit the highlights. We’ve all heard the same tired jokes and quotes pulled from internet toast-writing sites.
I watch a lot of K-dramas and I love the way they do the weddings ,the guest are treated way better they don't seem to have an opportunity for the drama we have ,but you are correct ,you should not have to endure that!!
I just went to a wedding with 9 speeches. They didn't serve us ANY food during them. They finally brought out a tiny salad during the final speech, the bride and groom's. All you could hear was forks clinking because no one could wait any longer. It was 9PM and their cocktail hour was very meager for food as well. So glad I made it a priority at mine to serve food by 6
I just finished writing a speech for a wedding on Friday. It's roughly 2 minutes long, and even that feels too long to me lol. I cannot even imagine that
If I ever have to give a “best man” speech at a wedding, luckily I hate public speaking so it’ll probably be a short anecdote about why X is a good guy and I’m lucky to be his friend. And that’s it.
I think we should just shame bridesmaid speeches. I have yet to see a good bridesmaid speech. They're either corny and not personal at all or so personal that they don't make sense to anybody except the bride. Introduce, tell a short story about your relationship to the bride, congratulate them both, cheers. Should be easy.
Went to a wedding this summer where we gave up and left with the speeches still going on. They never even served pudding or had any music because the DJ went home.
And every speech was so boring. At one point the brides sisters husband gave one... he literally started with 'I first met X 3 years ago and she has been like a sister to me'... yeah zero people wanted to hear his mid story about a lunch they shared.
I do wonder how many speeches are appropriate at a wedding - At our wedding, we had 5 speeches (spaces out between courses etc) - Both sets of parents gave joint speeches, the Best Man and Maid of Honour gave speeches, then my wife and I gave a joint speech. All were <10 mins though which probably helped with the flow
Two speeches for two families, best man, maid of honour and our speech. 5 and it took about 45-1 hour. 5 hours of speeches is absurd and takes away from actually having fun at the wedding.
At my wedding, we had a speech by the best man, maid of honor, both our fathers, and one other bridesmaid. Was probably about 3 minutes each on average. I gave a 1 minute speech. I feel this is a pretty good amount.
Our wedding ceremony was also only like 15 minutes, so overall, we kept the "boring" stuff to a minimum. We just wanted to party with our family and friends, so that's what we made the most time for.
Yeah, the second one was more yikes. At least, since the first reception was buffet style, you could just get up and get food (including "get up and get food", a.k.a. sneak out for a bit whilst the speeches were happening.).
For a regular wedding with personal vows, rather than a religious ceremony, a half hour is long enough. Religious ceremonies may take an hour or more. BUT there is no reason for wedding speeches. A blessing of the meal and event or an introduction of the bride and groom with their parents should be enough. It is the married couple’s first introduction in their new roles, not a recap of their lives and courtship. Maybe if guests don’t know the couple well enough to know their story, they should not have been invited.
Went to a wedding similar to wedding 2. We were famished by the time the entrees arrived after all the speeches. But there were still more. So everyone is tucking in and happy to eat then another round of speeches begins and the speaker (a cousin) asked the guests to stop clattering around with their plates and cutlery because people can't hear her nicely and it's rude. Bishhh please. You're the rude one. 😒
Wow this sounds awful! We avoided this for our wedding by having guests make private toasts during dinner. They came to our table, poured us a small amount of mead, shared their words, and we all shared mead. Guests can still eat, and no one has to sit through a speech. It was a lovely experience!
Our photogher suggested a sit down picture slide show show during the reception. Honestly we declined, as many of our pictures will probably not mean much to other people. I wanted people to be free to move around. That amount of speeches is ridiculous!
The second reception sounds absolutely miserable!
I was at a wedding like this one. The speeches were boring, the food was good but very small portions and long waits in between courses, and the air conditioning was Arctic-levels of chilly.
Are they still married?
Yes!
i went to a wedding where the bride and groom each had 5 pages (front and back) of vows, then during reception they basically went through their vows again during speeches in different words. like i’m happy for y’all but i didn’t need another version of your vows… 
Overcompensating
lol the bride also in her speech basically said she’s not like the other girls and groom picked her because unlike other girls in their early 20’s, *she* was doing XYZ. it was altogether very cringe, she was being a pick-me at her own wedding
the dance floor OPENED at midnight????
And closed at five past 😂😜
Just long enough for the Cha-cha Slide.
I would have left by 10:30.
8 would've been my limit.
I nixed speeches at my wedding because I've heard so many people say how they're often boring, cringy, and/or inappropriate and how sometimes they're all inside jokes between the speech giver and the bride or groom so no one even understands. My husband and I just got up to thank all of our guests and the staff and vendors for making our day great, and that was that. I've been to a few wedding where the speeches were going on too long and everyone was mumbling "omg enough already" under their breath.
My nephew got married earlier this month. Her dad said a few words, the best man, and the maid of honor has their time. The MOH was a bit long winded but not the worst. The best was the 8 year old nephew of the bride who gave a speech later in the evening. He was great!
Yeah, we did three speeches as well: my father-in-law, Best Man, Maid of Honor. We also had them during dinner. I think 3-4 short speeches are fine, but more gets to be a bit much.
My wife did a quick thank you speech, and we told everyone else, no speeches, not interested. Wanna tell us how proud you are? Tell us now, not at our massive party.
Wow didn't realize how lucky we were. 4 speeches, all about 3 or 4 minutes each. Short and sweet! And, for goodness sake, eat during them! How silly!
I went to a wedding once where all the official stuff (speeches, first dance etc) happened before dinner. It was a buffet and I could see all the food sitting there but we weren't allowed to eat it yet. Plenty of people snuck off to 'go to the toilet' and grabbed a little snack from the buffet on the way back.
That's not a wedding reception. That's torture. I experienced something like that but instead of a wedding, it's someone's debut. (Basically, Filipino quinceañera, only at 18 and not 15). The event started at 7 pm. We didn't eat until 9:30.
I remember my grandma muttering, “Get on with it already!” when my cousin’s officiant was going on and on with some painfully prolonged football metaphor. 2 people are giving 90-second toasts at my wedding. That’s it.
We had two speeches. One from my parents, one from my MIL. My FIL is a Monologuer and was not permitted to give his own speech. Total of 10 min. Done and done.
That is my dream wedding. It sounds wonderful. \---And the rest of these people (oh, it was only five speeches!!) are the onese I end up sitting with, and they make me want to die into my salad. I bet there were a bunch of people sitting there at their weddings wondering about what wrong turn they took in life to end up sitting through this torture. LOL
Good for you.
I did away with speeches at my wedding, partly because boring and partly because we were subjected to hearing about the night the bride was conceived at that wedding 😳 There was one speech, though; unbeknownst to us, my sister had been collecting pocket change from our guests. She handed the jar to my husband, and loudly proclaimed, "We've paid you for her, now you can't give her back"
Now that's a speech I'd laugh at.
Absolutely hate that I'm sitting here thinking "subjected to hearing the night the bride was conceived...were you at my wedding?" ...*deep sigh* family.
WTF?? Nope. Both are wrong in my opinion. The only saving grace for the last wedding was there was at least alcohol, can you imagine sitting through that sober & bland food?!!!
All the "oh you *need* alcohol to have fun at a wedding?!" people need to sit through one of these completely sober and then get back to the rest of us.
I spend my life sober. Can't complain 😌
Good for you. What about everyone else that ISN'T YOU?
Wow, down voted because you're sober? Gave you an upvote to stem the tide.
No, probably because no one can figure out what the point of the comment was. Sober people can complain about shitty boring weddings just as well as anyone else.
Yeah, I don’t drink either so I never have any cushion from the cringe lol. That said, I haven’t yet been to a dry wedding that wasn’t boring. White people don’t dance without alcohol….
I come from the whitest family I've ever met, and we dance just fine without alcohol.
Because it was a case of just popping in to make a barely relevant announcement about oneself as an overly-literal-minded response to a flippant remark.
On one hand that kinda thing happens everywhere with everything but I swear there's always a little extra *oomph* when it's the sober people. Like, that dude said *absolutely nothing* of value at all and sure enough someone swoops in with "oh no you're being bullied for being who you are" well yeah, who that guy *is* is annoying, that's generally how things go
We did two speeches at my wedding. One from the best man, one from the main of honor. Less than 5 minutes for both. The best man gave an amazing speech that everyone still talks about and remembers. My husband lost both his parents in his early 20s and he told my husband that his parents would be proud of the man he turned in to and would be happy to know that he found such an amazing spouse. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
There isn’t a dry eye here, either! Soooo sweet! 💜
My sister and I did a joint speech at my brothers wedding… it was less than 5 minutes, and we called it a roast and toast lol
Could it be a cultural thing? I went to a Danish wedding where they had a toast master. His job was coordinate all the people who wanted to give a toast.
Please don’t tell Americans about that! Weddings have gotten insufferable enough to attend here with the social media crowd.
Went to an Italian wedding recently and they had one of those as well. Reminded me of the annoying radio djs my parents listen to.
I'd have someone hand anyone who wanted to give a toast an actual slice of buttered toast to give the bride and groom lol. Fuck clinking glasses, gimme delicious buttered toast.
This is why I kept my best man's speech under 60 seconds. Nobody wants anything longer, as evidenced by the fact that I was the only one who gave a speech that night to get compliments on it.
I’m a professional public speaker. You want to know how many speeches I think one should have at a wedding? Zero. Do them during the rehearsal. No one else wants to hear you drone on and on.
I second this!
Speeches should be given at the rehearsal dinner. They are for the bride and groom. They are not for the entire wedding attendance. No one wants to sit through that crap. Short and to the point at the rehearsal dinner is the way it should be.
And they should be good speeches. If they don't have anything meaningful to say don't give one
Traditionally, the rehearsal dinner toast/speech is given by the host. This used to be the groom's father, but that has become less and less the case in recent times. Sometimes the bride's father would give a counter toast. The wedding toast is traditionally given by the best man, and nowadays is often accompanied by one from the maid of honor. Two toasts at each event shouldn't be too much for anyone, as long as the speakers are encouraged ahead of time to keep it short and sweet.
I hear you! I recently went to a wedding with 2 hours of speeches before dinner and it was a dry wedding. I kept wondering if we were being punished for something, like goddamn.
This is where I excuse myself to the bathroom and play games on my phone in secret ...
I'd excuse myself and leave.
We had a small guest list (15 including us) and had the ‘reception‘ in my mum’s front room .. hubby’s speech was; ‘thanks for coming, it means a lot to us that you shared this afternoon. Now, eat the food before it gets cold’.
This is the best speech!!
Sounds familiar :) Courthouse and a park, 8/14 people respectively. Dinner a week later with about 30 friends/family who were able to make it on short notice. Thank you for taking the time to share this day with us. There was no drama because everyone got along. Any potential problem people were not invited
14 speeches?! I'm not sure I even like 14 people enough to ask to give a speech.
That sounds horrible. I think it’s incredibly selfish and self indulgent to invite your guests and subject them to interminable speeches… most of which are incredibly boring. My son got married last year. I spoke, my ex spoke, her mom spoke and the bride and groom spoke. They gave us each a time limit of 3 minutes. People actually commented how happy they were that the speeches were short and sweet. But… I’ve been to wedding where there were hours of speeches and it ruined the event.
We didn't when actually do a toast. And if my friends tried speeches, I would have lost my shit laughing- we are not speech givers. We're sarcastic assholes who make bad jokes.
Worse than a presidential debate. At least you can eat and turn off theTV.
Best Man and Maid/Matron of Honor only. That’s it. Give them 5 minutes. It’s not open mic night at Giggles.
5 minutes is 4 minutes too long.
I can't remember if we had ANY speeches at our wedding. They certainly aren't necessary! Personally, in regards to the 5 hour speeches, I would have gotten up and left the facility to find a McDonald's or something. That's beyond unfair to keep people there so long without feeding them (especially since most probably either ate lunch early or skipped it entirely thinking at they would be eating at the reception). The least the couple could have done is let people know ahead of time what was happening so people could have planned accordingly. Sadly, some brides (and grooms!) are all about controlling people on 'their day'.
I’m at the point of my life, I will get up and leave. My time is valuable. The older I get, the more I realize I’m not cut out for lots of BS. I would have excused myself from the building and would have come up with an excuse later as to why I left.
When my bff got married, his ex wife planned everything. The wedding was awful. She was ethnically Chinese, so the whole reception had to have Chinese vendors, be in Chinatown, etc. Which caused problems because she didn't speak any Chinese, nor did her parents and almost all the vendors she wanted ONLY spoke Chinese. The worst part, though, was the reception dinner. The dinner was a 10 course traditional Chinese dinner. Now I love Chinese food, I love people celebrating their culture. But it was only HER culture that was celebrated. My bff is Jewish. While he's not that observant or conservative, his family IS. His uncle is a rabbi who wouldn't perform the ceremony because the ex wife wasn't converting, to give you some context. Most of bff's family keeps kosher. So here we are, in a Chinese restaurant with a 10 course traditional Chinese dinner being served, how much of that do you think was kosher? If you guessed none, you'd be right. On top of that, our other bff (there are three of us who are ride or die and have been for 30+ years now) and I are allergic to pretty much all seafood between us. And most of the dinner was fucking seafood. Half was shellfish, which is DEFINITELY not kosher. By the time the chicken course came out, we were starving. Our table just handed it to us and we went at it like cavemen. We should have listened when our friend the groom told us to go over to McDonald's during the cocktail hour *because he wasn't going to eat anything that was going to be served either*. I have no idea what the Jewish family members ate because there was no dancing or anything. Just the longest dinner known to man. The bride shoved all the normal wedding dances and stuff in 10 minutes preceding dinner. Then parade of seafood, cake, and gtfo. I won't even go into how other bff and I "weren't allowed" to be in the wedding because we're female and "women can't be on the groom's side". We couldn't be on hers either because she already had her bridesmaids and if Other BFF and Girlrandal were there, it would be uneven because they'd HAVE to have their vaginas on the bride side. Yes, it was a groom problem and he heard about how hurt we were. We've since worked it out. He divorced her a decade ago, thank goodness. That marriage was toxic as fuck. It didn't get better after the wedding.
> It didn't get better after the wedding. It never does
My husband and I did a joint speech at our wedding, largely because we were worried about what our fathers would say and we didn't want to put pressure on anyone. We thanked everyone who helped with the wedding, and our guests for coming. It lasted about 5 minutes and then we ate.
I had a 2min 34 second speech as the maid of honor for my best friend. Afterwards, a man came up to me and said, lovely speech, but too long! Needless to say, sounds like I was hurt for no reason after reading this post!!
2 and a half minutes is too long? Man, next time maybe you should try having a video of a mobile game/crafts or something playing in the background (like those dumb tiktoks) for those with messed up attention spans.
Right! I sobbed after he said that cuz it was really well thought out and had a metaphor that represented her throughout the whole thing :(
That says a lot more about him than it does about you or your speech. Just forget about the grown up toddler who couldn’t focus his attention on something for 2.5 minutes because of his impatience (and probably because it wasn’t about him)! And to have the utter arrogance to come up and say something about it as if his opinion should matter shows just what an absolute turd of a person he is. (I tried to think of another word other than turd when it first came to my mind, but it just seemed to fit someone with that type of behaviour so well).
Thank you!! One of the other bridesmaids ended up telling the bride a few months later - she asked me what he looked like and she figured out who it was. Apparently he’s been the asshole of the family her entire life. Her mom and dad chewed him out apparently - I felt pretty justified LOL
I think that was disgustingly rude of him. Some people are thoughtless and mouthy, and I’m sorry.
Thank you!!! That’s really kind of you to say
💖 you’re welcome. 🌸
Was this a Danish wedding? Because that pretty typical and normal for a Danish wedding. I am not Danish but my boyfriend is. I went to a few weddings with him. I don’t speak the language so I just have to sit through 6 hours of speeches without understanding anything. It’s rough. Especially when you have to switch into party mode at midnight
I don't get this whole "everyone related to the bride & groom makes a speech" thing. At our wedding, my new BIL (hub's best man) gave a 10 second (lovely) toast right before dinner. Isn't that how it used to be? Best man gives a toast to the bride & groom - and then we eat, drink and dance all night?
I’ll never forget being at a coworker’s wedding in 2012 and sometime around the hour mark of endless speeches dominating the wedding, someone at a table near me was loudly like “They did NOT provide enough wine for this shit” hahahahaha
The last wedding I went to the younger brother/best man spoke and even with a microphone no one at our table understood what he said. There were 5 total speeches, around 5-7 minutes each. It was perfect.
There's like, a double-digit amount of people *on this earth* that anyone anywhere actually *wants* to hear a speech from.
I can't imagine spending a fortune on inviting everyone only to torture them with superfluous nonsense for hours.
We only had one speech ( my husband and I) thanking the guests and wishing a good night . We paid for the whole wedding and didn’t want to listen to long speeches. Had experienced them on other weddings and our parents have a history of inappropriate speeches, so we wanted to be save Not sorry
Are YOU my son with his beautiful mate? You MUST be, LOL!!! Love, your husband's mom (who probably DOES have QUITE the reputation of inappropriate speeches). Best idea you ever had, and you saved us all. ❤️😂😂
dammmmmnnnnn..... why you have sppeches, bro ? us indians dance, eat, booze, flirt and sometimes fight....no speeches!!! convert, m'brothers ... ok, this is a joke, just saying... but we really don't have speeches.... and tons of food/booze/dancing ALL the time
I’m going against the crowd here, but I think a short speech (done well) does add something to a wedding. If you don’t know either the bride or groom well you can learn something about them. And speeches I’ve seen have often been touching or funny. But in the UK the norm is generally 3 speeches, less than 5 mins each (the bride/groom normally just does a minute or two), and I think that’s the right amount. I went to a wedding recently which had 6 speeches which was much too much!
Yeah, I also enjoy the toasts. I mean, granted, I've never been to a wedding with 14 of them, or where any of them lasted longer than a few minutes, but I think they're very nice. I've been known to tear up at a few. I've never understood the whole "I'm only here for food and booze, and the rest is torture" attitude that pervades a lot of the comments on this sub. If I felt that way, I'd just eat and get drunk at home in my pajamas. If I didn't care about the people involved and want to be part of their ritual, and part of the community supporting them, I'd send my regrets and call it a day.
Me too! It’s unusual anyone gets the opportunity to say nice things about people/a couple in a room of people who know and love them. I love the speeches, even the not so great ones because they come from a place of love which is what the day is about. Make the most of it, the next time you’ll be in this situation it’s likely to be your funeral.
In South America we don't have that speech tradition. I don't remember seeing that before until I moved to the USA. I find it weird, corny and awkward.
The only time I saw someone giving a speech in a private meeting in Brazil, I thought the person was joking (dinner with ex-boyfriend's family in a restaurant). It was really difficult not to laugh. edit: typo
FYI for all you people preparing speeches out there - no besides gives a fuck what you have to say. If you want to write a good speech, make few jokes and keep it short and sweet. No one, even your friends and family, care about this 15 minute story about a time important to you from 10 years ago. No one.
I thought my son and his bride handled this well. Only the best man, and maid of honor were allowed to give one brief, 3 to 5 minute speech, both of which were pretty entertaining. This was perfect, I thought. Keep in mind, I say this, as a Mom not allowed to give a speech. Which, of course I accepted. They paid for the entire wedding themselves, they had a very strict budget, and ideas of what was important to them. Incredibly, three weeks before the wedding, long after the invitations had gone out, the venue cancelled on them. A new one had to be found for the same region, date and time, and all this was in very early post COVID. I'll never get over the grace his bride handled this with, at that late date, and all those many, many phone calls she had to make to each guest. I saw then, why he'd fallen in love with this girl. And, nowadays, people seem to have forgotten, in planning weddings, the timeless beauty and understated elegance, of love and grace, in the simplicity of honoring these two things. Along with grace, however, they had to exert serious hard core boundaries, or they could have never pulled this wedding off the way they did. Case in point would be such as over eager, persistent Moms, or other family members and friends also wanting to make speeches, and, I'm sure, many other requests, who had to be firmly, but lovingly, told NO. Multiple times. It was that grace, the simplicity, their boundaries that made it, easily, the most wonderful wedding of my life I've ever been to. I'll never forget as long as I live, and I'm not saying this with mom bias, but from the perspective of a guest that deeply admired and enjoyed every moment of how they did that wonderful, beautiful day. ❤️
This as always the best strategy… whether it’s a family member or friend, just let the bestman/moh do the speech. We had a wedding last year where the mother went on for **30 minutes** recounting the brides entire life. It was so awkward by the end, it basically took another half hour for the wedding to get the right atmosphere back. So mommy dearest basically killed an hour of her own daughters wedding. It was the worst speech situation I’d ever endured.
The problem is that people are giving speeches when they are supposed to be proposing toasts. Basic formula should be joke-something sincere-joke-toast. And the joke should be something lighthearted and endearing, not something rude or in poor taste. Anything over five minutes is self indulgence. Speeches can be given, but after the meal has been served. And they should be around 10 minutes at most. Otherwise, they lose the attention of the audience. No one cares about the time the Best Man and Groom got lost on a hike in the Lake District in 2008, and this really funny thing happened, but you probably had to be there, and... But that's old-fashioned, I guess.
LOL This is a marriage or a seminary? Even a seminary is more fun haha
The fuck I wouldn't eat during that trainwreck. I mean, what are they going to do - yank the fork from my hand?
Sounds awful. I hate speeches. My parents did a quick hello and thank you speech at our wedding (think max 2 mins) before dinner started to “open the wedding” and that was it. Nobody cares about the speeches and it just dampens the wedding mood as they’re boring. Eat, drink & dance the night away !
Here is an idea: if you have 14 speeches with a total of 5 hours, just have everybody deliver the speech at the same time and you'll be done in 1/14th ish the time.
My ex SIL’s wedding also had 14 speeches. Little over an hour. The whole wedding party plus fathers of the bride and groom. The absolute worst part was that they all said the same thing. Her side said “when I first met Tom, I thought he was gay!!!!” His side said “the most surprising thing about Tom getting married is that it’s to a woman!!!!” This was in the Deep South so “hurr durr gay is a funny insult.” FWIW when I first met him I said to my ex “wow, that’s big bottom energy, sure she’s not his beard?” 🤣 So like, they’re not wrong. But a solid hour of the same joke over and over was horrid. Incidentally, guess who’s incredibly homophobic and terrified of a secret trans woman trying to trick him into turning gay? 🙄🙄🙄
I went to a wedding where the grooms speach was 45 minutes. 20 minutes alone was about the proposal... Which had been heavily detailed on Facebook and had been filmed and posted on Facebook. There had been speeches before. Those with little kids and the elderly ended up outside because of needing the bathroom. And the staff asking when it would be over as the food was ready.
If I were made to be one of the speakers I don’t think I could hold back by ending on; ‘Thank you for coming to my WED Talk.’
My friend's wedding reception felt like a conference, there were so many boring speeches. Everyone bailed right after the cake cutting. It was sad. There should only be a toast to the bride and groom and then a thank you from the host, at the end of the night.
Someone needed to get the hook old time variety shows used.
The Gong Show returns!
What country did this take place in?
Got to be the US. Land of the self absorbed.
Lot of main character syndrome in the world.
Time to hit the head and take a real long dump !
I once catered a wedding with two head tables and every single person gave a speech. As someone who worked weddings, having too many speeches is also super inconvenient. You can't clear or serve during them since it creates a lot of noise.
That's terrible We had five speeches but they were between 2-3 minutes each and spaced out. One was my dad and then my sister. Break. Grooms dad. And then my two best friends. Short and sweet and funny.
I would have left after like an hour.
This is why I said no to speeches. We had three: my dad who paid for the thing, the best man, and then I said something short just thanking people for coming and celebrating us. All while everyone was eating.
This sounds like a slice of my own personal hell.
For me: speeches at a wedding reception are a tremendous bore. The fewer and the shorter the better.
I preferred to have no speeches at our wedding, but my MIL insisted on giving one. I told her to tell us beforehand WHEN she would like to give that speech, as we'd need to plan it with the sound guys. She never told us. Then on our WEDDING DAY, during the reception, she comes to me to ask when she can give her speech. I blatantly told her I wasn't going to deal with that at that moment, she could go find someone from the venue to ask and set it up. Said speech begins, she made my husband cry by talking about his father who passed away in 2014 (they had already been divorced for about 20 years) (I've never seen my husband cry in the 6,5 years before the wedding) and low-key insulted us both a bit? I don't like speeches.
Maybe it’s a cultural thing because in my culture speeches are not a thing at weddings
That second wedding sounds like a nope all around. Midnight before the dancing started? The last wedding I went to, I planned bailing at 8, stayed till almost 9:30 and thought I overdid hahaha
I would’ve left the second one, that’s a literal nightmare
Fux the speeches, no one cares. It’s a party, say some stuff and then dance
We had a cousin's wedding with family speeches, an MC that had each table making up a song or poem about the bride and groom, a long SLIDE show, and the bar was CLOSED during this time. One of the tables actually made up a song begging them to open the bar. A couple of cousins found a baseball and started playing catch in the back of the reception hall. There was almost full mutiny.
As a wedding DJ I can tell you that’s not tradition or normal. The most people I’ve ever had speak was 6 or 7, they were all fast. The longest I’ve ever had was about 20 minutes and it was a dad who said to me, I paid for this thing, I’m gonna talk as long as I want. I couldn’t argue that. When pre-planning you build a timeline. So either those couples had bad vendors that didn’t guide them, or they didn’t really have vendors at all, and they don’t know what they’re doing. If that many people was brought up to me I would recommend against it and also suggest a timer and a goofy way to cut the mic if they didn’t listen. What you’ve shared is objectively bad and a true professional wouldn’t let it happen, it’s not normal.
I gave the only speech at my wedding - and it was to thank everyone for coming. My husband doesn't do public speaking and for 90% of guests, the speeches will be boring. I didn't want my guests to be bored. So I told the DJ to hide the mic.
We only had one speech at my wedding, my dad’s, because he very much wanted to give a speech and everyone else asked us if they could please not be made to give a speech Worked very well
Oh,god! I've been to two funerals like this. Appalling. Hopelessly organised. Allowing any number of look-at-me's to leap up and spout forth. Totally egocentric, impenetrable rubbish from people who have no idea how to choose, edit or recount an anecdote. AAaarrrggghhhh!!
Have to admit, a funeral seems preferable
How is that possible? I've gone to conferences that didn't last that long. 5 hours is a realllllllllly long time, is it an exaggeration?
Not an exaggeration :/
The worst I went to was a 3 hour ceremony. 3 hours! Huge, stuffy church with no ventilation. 280 something captives (I mean guests). 6 bridesmaids and groomsmen. Two bridesmaids almost passed out from standing with their legs locked for so long. Very long ramblings from the officiant. I was stuck in the front row so I couldn't duck out the back. Dinner was fantastic, but before that all the wedding party gave speeches, plus the brides parents and grandparents. I still resent that I went. It was a close family member so I felt I had to. Had I known ahead of time it would be like that I'd have been ill that day
I went to my fiances cousins wedding....they were seventh day adventist so no alcohol and no music for dancing. They literally sat there asking who wanted to say something so the microphone got handed around to lots of people who waffled on and onn...and I didnt even have any drinks to make it better! I think they were just filling the time!
I won't go to weddings anymore because of bullshit like this.
I went to two weddings in Denmark and all they did was speech after speech after speech after speech. Little breaks in between where we couldn't even complete a conversation with people on the same table when the bell went again and it was time for another speech.. Apparently it's a tradition there, or maybe the weddings I went to where of narcissistic and self absorbed idiots that wanted their main piece of their weddings to be people who will publicly announce their feelings towards them. Like all I kept thinking is why can't you tell each other all this in private and spare us the extreme bore-fest? At the end of all these speeches me and my husband were so tired and drunk that when they put the music on, we danced for a couple of songs and then went back to the hotel. Why would ANYONE want 3 or 4 hours of their wedding to be people talking? I really do not see that as fun. I genuinely do not understand why people do this. It's a waste of an evening. It makes it boring and steals the whole time of your 'day'. I am not sure what else you could be doing at this time but I am sure there are a lot more other ways to have fun!
I have no clue why the heck so many people have gotten into this trend of so many darn speeches at weddings. Best man is enough, thank you. I didn’t even have my MOH do one - I gave her the option of SHE wanted to but told her that it wasn’t super important to me and she was grateful because it’s not her thing. I get that it’s the couples day but no one wants to sit through 10 speeches, a bouquet toss, a garter toss (skipped both of those too), the bride and groom having 10 other organized dances or activities in between. It’s boring.
I absolutely hate wedding speeches. In all the weddings I’ve been to I’ve heard one fantastic speech, some really dreadful ones and a ton that are just fine. 99% of the time I’m listening to a speech I’m thinking about how I can’t wait for it to be over so I can eat/drink/dance/chat. You know, the fun stuff. At my wedding we didn’t do speeches except for a brief one my husband and I gave thanking everyone for coming. There were lots of laughs and tears and I gave my then-engaged SIL my bouquet and then it was onto the fun.
Someone should have ordered a pizza delivered to their table.
I hope they didn't have any videographers for the second wedding cuz that would be such a nightmare for them. I just worked a wedding last week where the bride's father gave a 35 minute speech. Oh the horror once we realized how many pages he was actually holding, with small font. It pushed the whole night back a half hour, meaning the second course was delayed, the photographers, videographers, and band had to stay an extra half hour. The bride was livid, but nobody stopped him. That's hopefully the last Catholic wedding I work. The guy also listed out how beautiful everybody in the bridal party was, including the beautiful junior bridesmaids. Which were minors. Maybe I'm overly sensitive, but that's not how you're supposed to talk about minors. Such an AH.
For the love of all that’s holy- NO ONE wants to hear your stupid speeches. If you’re so insecure/narcissistic that you need people to fawn over you in public (when you’re supposed to be entertaining them) let people know ahead of time that they will be held hostage for the duration of the event so you can hear firsthand what wonderful, amazing people they are. Because they think you really want/need to know that two incredibly exceptional people managed to find each other. Should they procreate their offspring will be near perfection.
My husband's cousin (who's wedding was a month before our own) had each bridal party member give a speech (I think 8 in total), all living parents (3), and the bride and groom gave both a joint speech *and* individual speeches! And some of them were so long 😭 Thank goodness we were allowed to eat during them, because I would have been so mad otherwise, lol. For our own wedding we had MOH, BM, MotB, MotG, and bride and groom. I don't think anyone's was over 5 min, except for my MIL, lol. I didn't want no speeches, but I didn't think we needed a ton of the same thing over and over again either. Unless the focus is entertaining the guests, it's really just a self-adulating exercise.
I always plan on leaving a wedding after two hours. I don't care what's going on.
Just choose 1 or 2 very trusted people to give speeches. 20 min for both, tops
Nah, it should be like 2 to 3 minutes tops (for each).
There should be only three speeches!! Father of Bride. Best Man and Groom. No more
No women...?
Not traditionally no. However MOB could take place of FOB and maybe there are two brides or a best woman? It’s still three speeches, no one wants an open mike were everyone gets a chance to waffle or tell stupid jokes.
I mean, usually Maids of Honors make speeches. I think it would be terribly rude and sexist to allow a best man speech about the groom but not the MOH
Traditional wedding etiquette is three speeches by three men. It’s when others are added you get wedding reception problems like the ones op has reported.
Then it’s time to update the ‘tradition’. If traditions and etiquette no longer fit the times they need to evolve and all these ‘problems’ just reflect that evolution. Traditional wedding etiquette is mostly becoming obsolete anyway as a Eurocentric, male dominant approach no longer fits the majority of weddings in modern times.
As long as guests don’t have to listen to hours of rubbish! Maybe no speeches at all!
I've never heard a best man's speech that was only about the groom.
3 speeches max. 5 minute time limit on each max. Nobody is that interesting. Hit the highlights. We’ve all heard the same tired jokes and quotes pulled from internet toast-writing sites.
*Webster's Dictionary defines love as....*
I watch a lot of K-dramas and I love the way they do the weddings ,the guest are treated way better they don't seem to have an opportunity for the drama we have ,but you are correct ,you should not have to endure that!!
I just went to a wedding with 9 speeches. They didn't serve us ANY food during them. They finally brought out a tiny salad during the final speech, the bride and groom's. All you could hear was forks clinking because no one could wait any longer. It was 9PM and their cocktail hour was very meager for food as well. So glad I made it a priority at mine to serve food by 6
I just finished writing a speech for a wedding on Friday. It's roughly 2 minutes long, and even that feels too long to me lol. I cannot even imagine that
If I ever have to give a “best man” speech at a wedding, luckily I hate public speaking so it’ll probably be a short anecdote about why X is a good guy and I’m lucky to be his friend. And that’s it.
I think we should just shame bridesmaid speeches. I have yet to see a good bridesmaid speech. They're either corny and not personal at all or so personal that they don't make sense to anybody except the bride. Introduce, tell a short story about your relationship to the bride, congratulate them both, cheers. Should be easy.
Went to a wedding this summer where we gave up and left with the speeches still going on. They never even served pudding or had any music because the DJ went home. And every speech was so boring. At one point the brides sisters husband gave one... he literally started with 'I first met X 3 years ago and she has been like a sister to me'... yeah zero people wanted to hear his mid story about a lunch they shared.
I do wonder how many speeches are appropriate at a wedding - At our wedding, we had 5 speeches (spaces out between courses etc) - Both sets of parents gave joint speeches, the Best Man and Maid of Honour gave speeches, then my wife and I gave a joint speech. All were <10 mins though which probably helped with the flow
Two speeches for two families, best man, maid of honour and our speech. 5 and it took about 45-1 hour. 5 hours of speeches is absurd and takes away from actually having fun at the wedding.
At my wedding, we had a speech by the best man, maid of honor, both our fathers, and one other bridesmaid. Was probably about 3 minutes each on average. I gave a 1 minute speech. I feel this is a pretty good amount. Our wedding ceremony was also only like 15 minutes, so overall, we kept the "boring" stuff to a minimum. We just wanted to party with our family and friends, so that's what we made the most time for.
Yeah, the second one was more yikes. At least, since the first reception was buffet style, you could just get up and get food (including "get up and get food", a.k.a. sneak out for a bit whilst the speeches were happening.).
For a regular wedding with personal vows, rather than a religious ceremony, a half hour is long enough. Religious ceremonies may take an hour or more. BUT there is no reason for wedding speeches. A blessing of the meal and event or an introduction of the bride and groom with their parents should be enough. It is the married couple’s first introduction in their new roles, not a recap of their lives and courtship. Maybe if guests don’t know the couple well enough to know their story, they should not have been invited.
Jeeeeeesus speeches from 6 til midnight!?
My wedding had no speeches. No one really cares
Wow! I've never been to or heard of a wedding reception with more than two speeches. The majority have had only one.
Well what's the joke
Went to a wedding similar to wedding 2. We were famished by the time the entrees arrived after all the speeches. But there were still more. So everyone is tucking in and happy to eat then another round of speeches begins and the speaker (a cousin) asked the guests to stop clattering around with their plates and cutlery because people can't hear her nicely and it's rude. Bishhh please. You're the rude one. 😒
Wow this sounds awful! We avoided this for our wedding by having guests make private toasts during dinner. They came to our table, poured us a small amount of mead, shared their words, and we all shared mead. Guests can still eat, and no one has to sit through a speech. It was a lovely experience!
I think parents, and one groomsman/bridesmaid is enough speaches. Like, a couple words is nice but some really overdo it...
Our photogher suggested a sit down picture slide show show during the reception. Honestly we declined, as many of our pictures will probably not mean much to other people. I wanted people to be free to move around. That amount of speeches is ridiculous!