am i supposed to know about the groom speech?

I'm not sure there is any real "correct answer" either way.

My b2b has helped me with some parts of the speech, others I've kept to myself to be a surprise. It's on my computer and I've used the "black text on black background" trick to blot out the bits I don't want her to read, and although it's very easy to get round that, I trust her. In return, she trusts me that I'm not going to make any inappropriate jokes or otherwise embarrass her.

If your h2b feels he needs help and you're happy to give it, then by all means do, if you'd rather it was a surprise get the best man to help him instead.

I'm having the same with my other half, he's not very confident and extremely shy and is worrying about his speech with just over 10 months to go. I have said that I will do one as he's that nervous but he's adamant it's his job but I know that he will find it hard to write and will be asking for guidance. Suppose it's a way of making sure he doesn't crack and dodgy jokes lol.

Most of us aren't used to giving speeches and lack confidence - but there's plenty of books out there to help us guys, so perhaps you could get him one for a birthday or christmas (whichever comes first) present?

Thanks for idea AJ but not time for that, think I'll help with the thankyou, but as not had much input elsewhere would be nice for him to have soemthing that he was responsible for! haha

All the speeches were a surprise to me...

The basic outline:

- Thank the father of the bride (who the groom follows) for his kind words.

- Thank the guests for coming.

- Something about how wonderful his new wife looks

- Some funny stories about their past, their first date, etc etc.

- Thank the male ushers etc for their part in the day, toast.

- Thank the females (bridesmaids/cbm) for their part in the day, toast.

- Hand over to the Best Man, usually with a little humour.

If you need any more help it might be worth posting in the groom section? We could use some traffic over there!

Haha... i think I would like as much of it as possible to be a surprise, we aren't having very traditional speeches I lost my dad in Feb so having an Uncle of the bride speech instead!

I helped my H with all of his speech EXCEPT the bit at the end which was about me. After all, I can't see that it matters if I knew in advance what he was going to say about his best man, parents etc. I just didn't want to know what he was going to say about ME until the actual moment.

We worked out a list together of people that needed to be thanked, then I did some and he did the rest. We worked on those together but kept the parts where we thanked each other separate.

Left to H his speech would have been 'thanks for coming, hope you enjoy the day'. I helped him pad it a little bit with a story on how we met, thank you to BMs for their support, my mum for making the cake etc etc

Mum wrote my dad's speech cos he didn't havea clue.. but he ad libbed a little and there's a great photo of my mum laughing, head thrown right back during the speech ?

My OH is very used to public speaking and certainly doesn't lack confidence, but I think I'll need to give him a bit of guidance as to who to thank. I'm sure he'll get a groom's speech book for Christmas, which will point out the usual suspects to thank, but other than that, I'm just going to give him a list of people to thank and let him incorporate it into his speech. He writes very good speeches, so I want the whole thing to be a surprise!

At my sister's wedding, my dad ran his father of the bride speech past me. I wish he hadn't as it meant I'd heard all of his jokes by the big day.