Help...No Speeches - Ideas please?

Why don't you do a bride and groom speech and stand up together. It means she can support you and if you do become too shy to carry on she'll know to take over. I'm sure everyone would understand! :-)

I really feel for people who fear making speeches. A wedding speech doesn't have to be arduous at all and you can keep it really really brief. But I know for some, even that is too daunting. I did see a best man totally freeze at one wedding and really felt for him.

I was going to suggest videoing something to play on the day, your wife can then just stand up to introduce the video andif you felt OK with it, afterwards you could simply toast your lovely wife? Or you could think about letting your new wife do the speech, that's becoming a popular approach. What some people do is do the speeches before the meal to get them out of the way as that can help calm any nerves.

It's really not worth fretting over especially with so long still to go, but it all depends how much you want to give a speech or not. If you really want to you could try something like hypnotherapy maybe, but that's a bit extreme in my book.

I think the video is a great idea. Also there does not need to be a speech at all. You can have the wedding YOU want and there is no should involved.

You could do a slideshow thing in honour of your wife and just click through it? Would you be ok to introduce that very briefly?

Don't forget that the people at your wedding are not strangers. They are all people who know you and care for you. Nobody will judge your speech! You're the groom you've got a very willing audience.

All the best!

Hi Groom

I couldn't read and run on this one.. This is my situation pretty much to a T.

Me and OH both suffer with anxiety issues, him more so than me currently... I am fine in smalle groups chatting away etc, but when the spot light is actually on me so to speak it's a totally different board game, i go to pot ... the days of having to read out loud in front of the class at school had me a mess for day!!..

At Christmas time with my family, they suggested playing a game, kinda like charades, all very well till it came to my turn .. i felt my face burn up and my hands start to shake etc.. this is my immediate family .. but made no difference, it was hell... I could see the look of fear on OH's face so i managed to spare him his turn... point is i totally 100% understand how you feel..

As OH's anxiety is pretty bad at the moment, i considered me (bride) to do a small speech instead, but that idea didn't last long as reality dawned.

So we have mutually agreed that OH will literally just thank everyone for coming and that's that... i have pre-warned most guests that we aren't doing speeches as such, and i'm sure they all know us well enough to understand..

Just remember this is your day, and speeches are optional, if you are not comfortable with it, then just don't do it!

Good luck

Have the day you want and feel comfortable with, it's not worth making yourself ill with worry over so say you're not doing one now and take the pressure off yourself. If on the day you feel like saying a few words then that's great but don't feel like you have to. People have all sorts of weddings these days there's no need to do something just because it's tradition or it's what people expect.

If it is worrying you, don't do one! It isn't obligatory and you have enough stresses with organising the wedding to have sleepless nights about this.

I think there is a good chance if you decide not to do one, you might get carried away in the moment of the day and say a few words of thanks anyway but if you don't you don't. Something impromptu often comes across more heartfelt anyway.

I have been to weddings with no speeches and often no first dances. I didn't notice at all at the time - only commenting a week or so after "they didn't do speeches". To be honest, the speeches can often be the worst bit!

Haha, ya, that's good to make some video slide abou you ad your bride. some words can be adding at the video. and the end of video you only have some sentences to speak. like thank you for your parents in law t birth and tajing care about the bride, and etc.. good luck!!!

I agree with the others so far that if you dont want to do it, and its not you, then dont do it! You should be able to look forward to your wedding and have the day suit you and your OH, so dont do things that you dont want to... as others have mentioned, theres no such thing as a 'norm' these days!

If however you did want to say something to all of your guests, but miss out the stress of getting up to say it, could you write your message/speech and have it printed on nice paper and left on each persons place setting (or one per table etc) as a little 'Note of Thanks From The Groom' type of thing? Then you could write your thanks/annecdotes etc and rather than having to speak them, people could read them at their own leisure between courses? They could also be a nice keepsake for friends/family who may be included in the 'speech'.

Orrr... again if you did want some words to be said, could a more confident public speaker in your family/friends read out the speech on your behalf maybe.

Good luck! x

You don't have to do a speech. My OH is perfectly confident in large groups and I'm an experience public speaker, but we're not having speeches. We don't want them so we're not having them. In all honesty it's nearly always the most boring bit of a wedding. Don't torture yourself.

Just a little note on this one, I have seen a few times over the years where this has been the idea of the bride and groom but then an uncle perhaps would then stand up to say a few words which then encourages someone else to say a few --- and so on, and so they ended up with speeches anyway.

Do you have to have speeches? It's really not worth the stress and worry, especially if you are already feeling the pressure of it. Perhaps just agree not to have them and then if you feel like getting up and saying something on the day, just go with what flows. When my OH's sister got married, towards the end of the wedding (after a good few drinks) one person got up and made a little toast and speech, then before you know it half the room had got up and said something, it was quite good fun actually :-)