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!

She’s a few years older than me and we’ve never shared the same interests. She’s outgoing and loves throwing dinner parties, attending plays and going on trips with her friends. I’m more introverted and love reading, playing piano and hanging out at home with my dogs.

When it came time for me to write a sister of the bride speech, I was stumped for a while. I mean, we grew up together, but I don’t feel that I know her as well as her good friends. Yet, everybody was expecting me to give this great speech – including my parents.

I was really struggling to find the right words to say. Every time I sat down to write that speech, I found myself staring at a blank page. I mean, why did she ask me to do this? I don’t know. Maybe she felt obligated. The thing is, I needed to write a speech that meant something to both of us.

I had this wedding speech book that I bought the night before Candy’s wedding (she’s a good friend of mine) that I had completely forgotten about, so I decided to find it and see if it could give me some pointers. Good thing I did, because it turned out to be exactly what I needed to end my writer’s block.

You know, after reading some good examples in that book, I realized that I really could come up with a pretty decent speech. While my sister and I will never be close, we do share a special family bond, and I choose to focus on only those things we had in common. After that, the words to my sister of the bride speech began to flow. Before I knew it, I had a really nice speech to give at my sister’s wedding.

When you inject humor into a wedding speech, it can go really good or really bad. If you give a good one, you can end up being featured in an online video. Before you write your speech, there are some tips you need to know:

Be Natural – Remember, this isn’t a performance; it’s you speaking as the official maid of honor at a wedding. Relax and enjoy the moment. You don’t have to be the best public speaker in the world – just be yourself.

Use Their Relationship – You can throw a little humor into the mix when talking about how much the bride enjoys having the groom in her life. For instance, if she loves watching romantic comedies, you can joke about him having to sit through countless chick flicks in order to become the love of her life.

Tell Stories – Think about all of the experiences you’ve had with the bride and groom. You know the good, the bad and the ugly about their lives. This is where you will find those little tidbits to include in your maid of honor speech.

Give Advice – You can have fun with the traditional advice that is always given to newly married couples. Simply put a fun spin on it. For instance, you can advise the groom on how to keep his bride happy by handing over his credit card without a fight.

Don’t Go Overboard – Lighthearted humor is fine, but don’t mention anything that will embarrass the bride or groom. Keep ex relationships out of the picture completely. Always be mindful of the bride’s sense of humor, and know your limits.

With a few tips, and some funny maid of honor speeches to use as examples, you’ll be able to create your own speech that includes just the right mix of humor and heartfelt sentiment, which will be a hit at any wedding.

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.