Sign inThe maid of honor speech
You know her better than almost anyone in the room, which is exactly what makes this hard. There is too much to say and a very short window to say it in.
How long it should be
Three to five minutes. The most common mistake is not length but pace: reading the whole thing at the speed of nerves, so a well-written four minutes arrives as a breathless two.
The shape that works
Four beats, in this order. Not a template to fill in, just the structure most speeches that land turn out to have.
- Who you are to her
One line, and resist the urge to prove the friendship with a timeline. The stories will do that.
- Who she is
One story that shows it rather than lists it. The detail people remember is usually small and specific, not the big obvious one.
- Who they are together
What you noticed change in her. You have a vantage point on this that nobody else at the microphone has.
- The toast
To both of them, by name. Short, and then stop.
Crying in the middle, not at the end
It is not the emotion that breaks a speech, it is arriving at it unprepared. If a line gets you every time you rehearse it, that is useful information: either move it later, or say it enough times out loud that you can get through it.
You can write a good speech and still have it come apart out loud.
Most people rehearse by reading silently, which tells you nothing about pace, and nothing about the lines you skip when you are nervous. SpeechPrep listens to you read and gives you the timing, the what you actually said versus what you wrote, and one thing to fix.
Questions people actually ask
How long should a maid of honor speech be?
Three to five minutes. Time it out loud rather than estimating, because nerves change your pace more than you expect, usually by speeding you up.
How do I not cry?
Find the line that sets you off, and rehearse that line specifically until it is familiar rather than raw. Most people can get through anything on the fifth pass that undid them on the first. A pause and a breath is always better than pushing through a wobble.
Should I mention her ex or her past?
No. Even affectionately, even as a joke that lands in the room, it is the line people repeat afterwards for the wrong reasons.
Do I have to be funny?
No. Warm and specific beats funny and generic every time. If a joke arrives naturally, keep it; if you are writing jokes to fill a quota, cut them.