Maid of Honor Speeches

If you don’t think you need help coming up with your maid of honor speech, think again. I have experience in this area because I’ve actually had to do maid of honor speeches three times. That’s right, I’m 26 and I’ve already been the maid of honor at three weddings. One for my best friend, Stacy, one for a good friend of mine, Candy and one for my sister, Janelle.

When Stacy and I met for lunch to discuss the wedding rehearsals, she thought it would be a great idea if I gave a little maid of honor speech.

Sure, I said. No problem. I love to talk, so I felt it would be a snap. I thought I could get up there, wing it and still be entertaining.

Boy was I wrong!

About one minute into the speech, everything fell apart. I was rambling on and on about our college days. My jokes fell flat and the audience was staring at me with bored expressions. My face grew red as a beet after I glanced over at Stacy and she mouthed the words: End this now. I rushed through the rest of it, and I don’t really remember what I said. Just wanted to get back to my seat as quickly as possible. Man, was that ever embarrassing.

Fortunately, Stacy didn’t hold it against me. We shared a hug and a laugh afterwards. But, I vowed that if I ever had to make another speech at a wedding, I’d do my research first.

Sure enough, my good friend Candy asked me to be maid of honor at her wedding just a year later. I have this procrastination problem, so I put off preparing my speech until the night before the wedding. Fortunately, I found this little e-book that had maid of honor speech tips and dozens of examples that I could use to create my own.

Here’s some of what I learned:

• Get to the point and don’t ramble.
• Speak from the heart.
• Talk about your friendship with the bride.
• Stay focused on the bride and groom and their future together
• Use humor wisely

When I was maid of honor at Candy’s wedding, my speech was right on the money! I had some prepared notes to read and then was able to ad lib a little in parts. Everybody thought my speech was great!

I’m one of those perpetually disorganized people. You know the type. At work my desk is piled high with papers, and I have to search high and low for important things that I need at the last minute. Yeah, I know that I should learn how to be more organized, but I have this procrastination problem too.

Anyway, I’m selected maid of honor for my friend, Candy’s wedding and I’m really jazzed about it, because I like her and Brendan a lot. We all work for the same company and run in the same circles. I knew just about everybody that was going to be at the wedding, so I was really looking forward to it.

But, like with most things in my life, I put off getting prepared for this big event until the very last minute. I’m talking about the night before the wedding. By the way, I’d already given a maid of honor speech once, for my best friend Stacy. And I had never felt as humiliated in my whole life as I did then, my speech quite simply sucked. I vowed that if I ever had to give a maid of honor speech again, I would be prepared.

So, anyway, there I was, desperately searching online for some maid of honor speech ideas the night before the wedding. I found lots of scattered information, but I really didn’t have time to sit there for hours picking through bits and pieces.

I needed all of these ideas in the same place, so I stumbled onto this website and learned that I could buy a book of maid of honor speeches. Great! That’s exactly what I needed at 10 o’clock at night. Fortunately, I could download it to my computer right away.

I skimmed through the book and found a couple of examples that seemed exactly what I was looking for. I wanted a lighthearted speech with some heartfelt sentiments sprinkled in for good measure. I decided to use parts from both examples that I liked and combine the two together. Changed a few words around here and there to make it personal and walla! My speech was ready and I was able to sleep soundly that night.

My speech went off without a hitch, even though I lost the paper that it was written on for a brief moment. Found it in the car, thankfully. This just goes to show you that even a disorganized person like me can put together a great maid of honor speech with a little organized help.