My previous article focused on the importance of making your wedding speech relevant. Being relevant will help you convince your wedding guests to listen for a while, but it isn’t enough on its own to hook them in. So, once you have decided what the main theme of your wedding speech is going to be, you need to wrap it in an original way.
Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean you need to wear a bizarre costume, Morris dance or sing. But whatever the type of wedding you are speaking at, you need to convince your audience they are going to hear something new from you. The best way to do that is to communicate a little differently.
Examples of Original Speeches
There’s obviously a catch here. If I give you an original wedding speech idea then it will immediately cease to be original. However, I can give you a couple of examples of people who have managed to present relevant ideas in ways that have really made an impact on the audiences concerned.
Like the example of the accountant given fifteen minutes to speak on the difference between tax evasion and avoidance. This is obviously a technical issue with major consequences. Avoidance leaves more money sitting in your personal account, evasion gains you a stretch behind bars. So, she started by telling a story about life in Ford Open Prison. Her audience were captivated, and their interest grew when she explained that was exactly what they could be facing if they failed to listen to some of the finer details that were to follow.
Then there was a father of the bride at a recent wedding. His speech was relevant enough, but it just lacked a little bite. Until he mentioned that his daughter had spent the first twenty years of her life obsessed with the musical Grease. He then wove together the key stories and characters from her life using song titles and lyrics sung by John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. The majority of the thank you letters they received after the wedding referred to his speech as being the best they had ever heard.
There’s No Formula for Originality
These examples are obviously pretty random. There is, sadly, no formula for an original wedding speech. Originality disappears the minute you try to adhere to a template, and that’s why every speech I write begins on a blank piece of paper.
If you can combine a relevant approach with an original way of communicating the message then you are well on track.
Guest post by Lawrence Bernstein of Great Speech Writing
Image from Claire Basiuk Photography
