The Matron of Honor is expected to give a toast to the happy couple. This special honor is reserved for the bride's close friend. The Matron of Honor may appreciate a few tips in crafting a toast that's straight from the heart.
Let Your Matronly Experience Show
As a married woman, you know what it is like to be dating, engaged, and a newlywed. You have all ready "been there, done that" in the world of weddings. Use your experience to create a wedding toast that is unique to your position. After all, there is a reason your friend (or sister or relative) chose you to be her right-hand woman-you have the knowledge, passion, and love for the bride like no one else. Add in your experience as a past bride and newlywed, and you have everything a bride could need in her best woman.
Writing matron of honor toasts is often the same as writing a maid of honor speech. You want to touch on your friendship with the bride, the couple's relationship, and wish them best for the future. However, add a little extra into your speech by drawing on your experience as a married woman. Do this one of two ways:
- Give heartfelt advice for their future marriage.
- Create a funny speech that touches on silly things throughout the first year of wedded bliss.
Although many people can give advice on the above without being married, you will bring an extra special touch to the toast if you focus on things in your unique experience.
Future Advice
Because you are friends with the bride and the groom, you can give them personalized advice from the point of a matron of honor. They will feel especially touched if you incorporate advice they know you personally have followed through upon. Personalized stories relating to the couple's relationship and how it will result in a happy future by following your advice is a good way to write this into your speech.
Try to avoid using clichés and instead focus your advice on practical matters or matters of the heart, depending on how sentimental you want to be. Meaningful quotations are excellent additions into your toast.
Funny Speech
If you enjoy a friendly banter with the couple, write a speech that will leave guests in an uproar. Write a hilarious speech riddled with jokes that focuses on all the surprises the couple is in for as newlyweds. Draw upon your own newlywed experience to help illustrate each point (but make the observations general-after all, the speech is about the couple, not you!). Another way of writing funny matron of honor toasts is to take clichés about married life and tell how each part of the couple will break that cliché somehow. For example, you might say:
Everyone always told me never to go to bed angry. Sara and Ben, I'm passing that advice onto you. Only we all know you won't follow it-after all, when you work opposite shifts, you're lucky to make it into bed together at all (wink, wink!).
With funny speeches, be sure to make it audience appropriate. The above suggestion might be fine with some couples and not others. Knowing your audience is a big part of speech writing.
Check in With the Maids
Many brides-to-be choose a maid of honor and a matron of honor. In these cases, it is a good idea to collaborate with the maid in order to write interesting and unique toasts. You certainly do not want to have similar quotations or anecdotes in your speeches.
If you are close to the maid of honor, consider writing a joint speech. Two heads may really be better than one when it comes to making public toasts. Bounce ideas off one another and practice frequently so you get the rhythm of the speech down.
Regardless of whether you are the only best woman or not, it is a good idea to check in and see what the other bridesmaids think of your speech. They are all close to the bride and know her and the groom in different ways, making them perfect sounding boards for your ideas.
Final Tips for Matron of Honor Toasts
Writing a matron of honor wedding toast can be challenging, even for the best of friends and knowledgeable writers. Start writing the wedding speech several weeks in advance, giving you plenty of time to polish the final version.Other tips include:
- Keep the speech to around four or five minutes, tops.
- Practice in front of friends and the mirror.
- Use a notecard with an outline instead of reading verbatim from a typed page.
- Speak slowly and clearly, with enough volume for the whole room to hear easily.
- Remember to raise your glass in a toast to the couple at the very end of the speech.
If you are still having trouble writing a speech, do an internet search to find help. Many websites offer free wedding speeches or free wedding toasts you can personalize. Others, like Speeches.com, offer a free trial membership for building a speech based upon some personal information you enter.
