Best men are usually hopeless. They have been chosen on the basis that they they are the best friend of the groom, which is no reason to select anyone for such an important job.
If you are in the market for a best man, try to book Bruce Forsyth. If he’s not available, then William Hague or Tony Blair. These are tried-and-tested after-dinner speakers. Obviously Bob Monkhouse would be in pole position but he’s dead, so that’s a no-go.
The primary job of the best man is to deliver a humorous speech, and 99.9 per cent of these people are incapable of this. The second job is to tell people when it’s their turn to be photographed and, again, you’ll be extremely lucky if they are able to achieve this. The only other job is to organise the stag night and keep hold of the wedding rings. Most best men make a pig’s ear of the former but almost all can just about achieve the latter.
You have to be multi-skilled to be a decent best man and as such, the groom must not pick his best friend. He needs to employ somebody with organisational qualities and a decent sense of humour – and that’s nigh-on impossible.
If you think you can only get one of these qualities go for the guy who you can rely on to make people laugh. It’s horribly embarrassing when a best man’s speech dies during the reception, particularly if he was hopeless at organising the photos.
Idiot best men will search the internet for inspiration when preparing speeches and the preposterously stupid will buy a book. Both strategies will yield cringe-inducing results. You know you are in trouble when the stiff in the monkey suit declares: ‘I’m a bit nervous’. At this point, you’ll curse the fact that Lee Harvey Oswald is no longer available for freelance work.
After a mirth-free 20 minutes of dull anecdotes about the groom getting drunk and throwing up – and how terribly funny it all was – you’ll be looking around the room for a solid looking beam that’ll withstand your body weight.
If you have been charged with the task of being the best man and have been stupid enough to search the internet for ideas you might have come across the website thebestmanspeech.com. This cheeky little website has a few templates for you to follow if you are a dull person. They have a number of categories for different parts of the speech and they are, in fact, more amusing than a shipping report, but only just.
Consider thebestmanspeech.com’s ‘alternative’ icebreaker: ‘Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen – Never before have I stood before such an impressive audience… unless you count my one and only time as a steward at Wrexham FC.’
Once that spleen-wrecker has done its job, why not use the stag night as a source of material? Thankfully thebestmanspeech.com has that covered too with: ‘As far as the stag night went, I can assure the bride that the groom’s conscience is clean … well, it should be clean – because he never used it.’
Stop it man, you’re killing me.
Of course, thebestmanspeech.com has been a boon for some. Indeed, Gareth King from Gerrard’s Cross, UK (just in case you didn’t know) said he went down a storm after taking advice from this online portal.
Gareth’s testimonial on thebestmanspeech.com glows like a lava lamp: ‘Just to say many thanks as I used your website to help with the structure of my speech last Saturday, and it went so well that people were actually asking me whether I was a professional stand up comedian!!! At one point I had to wait half a minute for the laughter to stop.’
Gareth is now available for weddings, Bar Mitzvahs and funerals.
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