Wedding toasts find in Seattle.

Today I’ve stumbled on a great post over at: Seattle Wedding Officiants, and I thought that it would be good to share this reliable source of information on wedding toasts with you.

Elaine shares 5 really useful tips to keep you on track with creating your funny wedding toasts or other wedding speech. These are easy tips to remember and should prove to be very helpful.

A good overview of WHEN to make toasts; a point that you may not have thought of;  is very descriptive, giving you the proper moment for a seated dinner, buffet, or cocktail reception, to present your toasts. This is just one of several tips she highlights, and they are definitely helpful and to the point.

I heartily recommend Elaine’s article to anyone who is needing additional information on wedding speeches and wedding toasts. Check her article out here.

Wedding toasts are a highlight of the event.

Despite any feelings of failure you may have, I strongly believe that with a clear plan and a little practice your wedding toasts or speech is going to come off great!

I really do. Weddings are a great occasion and fun to attend. Your wedding toasts or speech will fit right in and make the event even better. Now that you’re serious and committed to making your wedding toasts work, how do you start? No matter if you want to take a serious angle or work to make a really funny wedding toasts, here are strategies you can use to come up with an effective and powerful speech in 30 minutes or less:

Wedding toasts creation road map that will help:

#1 – Identifying your purpose

The very first thing you need do before you even embark on your wedding toasts is to define your objectives. It is crucial that you begin with the end in mind. Ask yourself this, “What do I want to achieve from my speech or wedding toasts?”, “What do I want my audience to receive?”, “What do I want my audience to do next?” For weddings, for me, I want to be funny and at the same time convey my feelings and well wishes for the Bride and Groom. (You’ll just need to find an angle that works for your wedding toasts or speech).

The biggest mistake of public speaking is when you start with the wrong
purpose in mind. Mediocre speakers operate without a specific purpose which
can easily cause stress and anxiety. The nature of your purpose is just as
important as the purpose itself. Many speakers often mistakenly assume or even
subconsciously decide that their purpose is audience validation and approval.
Wrong. This is completely foolish. This causes great pressure on the speaker to
be absolutely perfect in order to win unanimous approval and this causes a great
deal of anxiety. I call this a “stress-producing” purpose.

Once you’ve established the purpose of your wedding toasts or speech, you can easily
craft your presentation around it in order for it to be achieved. Remember that
the essence of your wedding toasts is not to GAIN something, but to GIVE
something. When you operate with that frame of mind, you automatically tune
your body language, tone of voice and craft content that is useful for your
audience. With that, you immediately attract the attention of the majority.

#2 – Preparing your wedding toasts or speech

Now that you’ve identified the purpose of your wedding toasts or speech, it’s time you craft it. But before you do, it’s important to clarify your topic. One way to make sure
you’ve got it all cleared up is to try out the “business card test” – can you state
your main idea on only one side of a business card? If you can, you’re ready to
move on. If you can’t, keep working on it until you can.

Now, you can start drafting your wedding toasts. Grab a sheet of paper and right
at the top of the page, clearly state your desired topic and the goal of your
presentation. Then move on to write your opening lines and follow that up with 4-
5 key points. Back these points up and summarize them in the conclusion. This
is your outline. Now that you’ve listed your most important subjects, you can
begin crafting your speech or wedding toasts based on the completed outline.

Now that you’ve crafted a powerful introduction, you can move on to the
core points of your wedding toasts or speech. Each of these points should be backed by interesting  stories, illustrations, historical references, humorous anecdotes, and examples
that the audience may be able to relate to. Common stories or illustrations
include references to common childhood occurrences, growing up pains or even
teenage experiences. You can use these stories and examples to further
reinforce your point. Humans are sensory creatures. If you’re able to pique more
than just one sense – their hearing – you’ve got them hooked, forever, your wedding toasts will be the hit you wanted it to be.

Remember to include descriptives in your stories and even images for the visual
ones in your audience. Analogies help your audience connect the dots of your
points in their heads. Also remember to open and close each point with a clear
transition. This makes it easier for your audience to follow your story.

Now that you’ve detailed all the main points of your wedding toasts or speech, you can start to write your close. This could lead to a toast to the Bride and Groom, well wishes or perhaps to introduce the next speaker. 

#3 – How To Practice Your Wedding Toasts

The one way to eliminate stress and fear before your day to present your wedding toasts or speech, is to rehearse. Consistent practice will not only significantly boost your confidence,
but it will also help you remember and become more accustomed to your
material. Let me run through with you the basic structure of a rehearsal.

First, memorize your opening sentence. This is crucial as once you’ve got
into the beat of things, you’ll realize that the rest flows in more smoothly. Next,
memorize your main points in order of your presentations. Try to come up with
acronyms for your points and run them in your head consistently while
preparing. Also, remember your transitions. In between each point, remember
your choice of transition into the next point. Relate your transition sentence to
your main point and you will easily recall it during your actual presentation.

Also, remember your stories. The best way to do so is not to create stories, but to use actual personal experiences. This way you won’t have to try to hard to memorize details and feelings, but the story itself will come naturally to you and even if you forget the flow of the story, you’ll have your memory to help you.

While practicing your wedding toasts or speech, it’s important to smile and speak aloud, even if you’re alone. Believe me when I say that presenting in your head is not the same as speaking it aloud. Simulating an actual presentation even when alone can help you build confidence and help you create the atmosphere of an actual presentation. When I say simulate – I mean go all out. Smile, use gestures, practice your posture – all this may seem silly, but it really helps increase your energy and enthusiasm, indirectly injecting this same energy into your audience on the real day.

Another important thing to do is to record your wedding toasts rehearsal. Record it in
video format if you can. Why do I suggest recording? This is so you can reflect
on your own presentation aside from your audience. Put yourself in the shoes of
a viewer or listener and identify your mistakes or less glorious moments. Focus
your attention on the pacing and timing of your speech as well and take notes for
your following practice.

Lastly, your body language is particularly important as it sends subliminal messages to your audience. Walk straight and tall, make constant and firm eye contact with your audience, smile constantly and use gestures to help inject some versatility and movement into your presentation. Not only will this convey a less wooden message to your audience, this can also help to dissipate nervous tension.

To quickly summarize – practice, reflect, practice: That’s the key to success. Rehearse to small groups if possible. Record your rehearsals and analyze your own speech and presentation style and place particular emphasis on your body language.

For your wedding toasts or speech remember the following:

#4 – Incorporating your personality into your presentation

One common trait among great presenters is that they have a distinct style
which makes your speech or toast memorable and helps inject your personality into your
presentation. One way to incorporate your personality is to integrate humor in your speech. This is not only an effective way of exposing your audience to who you are, it also helps them relate with you at a more emotional and personal level. For me this is the best way to inject some personality into your presentation. Not only can it help grasp your audience’s attention, it can also liven up the atmosphere. However, if you choose to use humor in the presentation, make sure your jokes are original, and not cliche. Try not to make fun of members of your audience and instead turn the joke on yourself.

For example, if you are a person of short stature, you may want to poke fun at your
height to illustrate a point that is relevant to your speech. If you notice that your
jokes are falling flat on the audience, don’t be dejected. Punctuate them with
short, nonchalant quips such as “Damn, I’ll remember to keep that to myself the
next time.” or even “Crap, my mom thought it was funny. I’ll remember not to ask
for her advice on humor next time”.

At the end of the day, incorporating personality basically means be yourself. Your audience may not be psychic, but they will be able to see through a false persona. Therefore there is no better physical presentation than your genuine self. So relax, loosen up, and remind yourself to have a great time. A relaxed presenter who’s enjoying his or herself automatically opens up the audience and loosens them up. Your audience is a mirror of who you project yourself to be.

#5 – Practice Makes Near Perfect

I’m repeating this point because it is that important. This may seem simple enough, but the truth is the more you know your material, the more confident you’ll be as the fear of forgetting will disappear almost entirely. Like I mentioned previously, practice and record your speech.

Again, remember that this doesn’t have to be perfect and your wedding toasts or speech will get better as you go along and practice more. With time and sufficient practice, your speech or toast will drastically improve to the extent where you no longer have to worry about embarrassing yourself or screwing up.

I hope that these ideas will be of help to you with your wedding toasts or speech. But to make this process much much easier there is further help available that will give you clear direction and specific examples of wedding speeches and funny wedding toasts that will fit the event and YOU! This help will greatly reduce the amount of work you’ll need to do. This is the object of my next post which is a review of a website that supplies the tools you need for any wedding toasts or speech situation.

Wedding speeches can be a hand-full and I know that being asked to provide wedding speeches of any type is apt to have you on edge.

For a formal occasion, such as a wedding, because of the nature of the event, you are under some pressure to come off well. To help, always remember you are not the only one who has public speaking fears. It’s perfectly ALL RIGHT to be a little nervous. In fact, I  have learned that that is a good thing.

Here are some tips to help reduce your anxiety about wedding speeches and build your confidence:

• Practice well in advance. Even though it might appear useless beforehand it will always help you when you are in front of a room full of people.
• Tell your mind to ‘RELAX’. This will relax your nerves and helps you to feel confident.
• Enjoy the moment. When you are invited to give wedding speeches or toasts, walk briskly with confidence, smile.
• Establish eye-contact with the audience, take pride in your speech, take a deep breath and begin with the speech. This will give the impression that you are in command of the situation.
• Have confidence in yourself.
• Remember, that to break the ice, you can always admit your nervousness to the audience and smile. In that case even if you make a mistake people will have empathy and will not mind that much. Wedding speeches are vary forgiving that way.
• Don’t think that if you flutter or make a mistake people will laugh at you. Not at all. Everyone understands that it takes courage to go up there and talk.
• Just be yourself! Wedding speeches give you the chance to be the center of attention for a few minutes. Have fun with them. Trust me, they will go by fast!

A great new resource for creating wedding speeches and toasts

Now, if you looking for tools to help with crafting and presenting wedding speeches or toasts, as well as specific speech and toast ideas, I have found a resource that can help you get a clear focus on what you want to say and how you want to say it. This will go a long ways toward helping you feel more comfortable with your wedding speeches and toasts because armed with these tools and  some practice, you’ll be prepared and chomping at the bit to make your wedding toasts or speech the highlight of the wedding event. You’ll know you can make it happen and enjoy it as well.

As I mentioned earlier: Please don’t panic! You can do this, and have fun making some important people in your life feel very special. Help and ideas are at hand. I hope that my review will prove to help you with the wedding speeches or toasts you have been asked to present.

Now, go break a leg!