Avoiding that awkward middle part of the reception
The wedding party and the DJ put together such a spectacle that got everyone energized after the cocktail hour. The bride and groom’s entry was equally as fun, ending with a touching first dance with them singing to each other and literally dancing serenely as if no one were watching. The next hour would be the most challenging of the whole engagement process: sitting through a series of speeches similar to a Netflix marathon, but without fast forward button, with a fraction of the engagement and definitely with no chill.
I’ve wanted to write this series on preparing a good line-up of speeches for your wedding (or event) for some time now. With my attendance at tens of weddings and having to relive them ALL through the editing process, I’d love to offer some insights for making your speeches a fertile oasis in the program instead of “something to kill time with during dinner”.
I was tempted to do a little background research for this article into the origin of wedding speeches. Let’s face it, they’ve been done as far back as we can remember and it just seems so automatic that we should volunteer a few members of the wedding party and our family as tributes before the crowd. But I ditched the background research and decision to share my observations from a point of expertise.
Think about it: This, for some couples, will be one of the few times that people from almost every stage of your life will be together in one room: childhood friends, co-workers, schoolmates, teammates, members of the community, family, and those cousins that you only see at major family milestones. All these groups of people are strangers to one another and they only have a fragment of your (the couple’s in the case of a wedding) story. Speeches can help to put everyone on the same page. A well told story can quiet any group of people and bring them together, even if it’s just for its duration.
Lots of these groups of people are going to be sharing a table with each other. We often overlook the vulnerability involved in eating with a stranger and now these people, after anxiously investigating the table chart, realize that they’re sitting with people who’s names they don’t know how to pronounce. After laughing at a few jokes at the couple’s expense and seeing how their parts of the puzzle tie in to the complete picture of the couple, it’s now easier to look across the table and smile at each other. They now have more common ground and possibly an “inside joke”.
Choose a seat not a side
we’re all family once the knot is tied
Given these possibilities, here are some things to consider as you choose victims… I mean volunteers for your speeches:
I hope these thoughts inspire you in your decision-making process. You might be lamenting another thing on your list to think about but it’s totally worth the thought. I’ve been at weddings where all the speeches were so engaging and the vibe in the room was so much less awkward than it could have been. Plus, you get a way better wedding film because of it!
If you think I missed anything or have further questions, please leave a comment or reach out. If you know someone planning their wedding and hashing through their reception timeline, be a friend and send them this article. In the next post in this series, I’ll be talking about do’s and don’t in a wedding speech. After all, just because you choose the right people, it doesn’t mean they’ll know what to say 😉
As we narrate together!
P.S. – To read about what you could say in the speech, click here for part 2
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