Free tool
Is your wedding speech full of clichés?
Paste the draft. The lines every guest has heard before light up as you type, you get a score out of 100, and each one comes with a better move. No sign-up, no upload, no waiting. It runs in your browser and the text never leaves it.
Nothing leaves your browser. The text stays on this device.
Paste a draft above and the tired lines light up as you type.
The Clichés That Cost the Most
Not every borrowed line is equal. Some are harmless filler. These six are the ones that make a room settle in for a speech it has already heard.
- “For those who don’t know me.” The most common first line at weddings, and the guests hear it as a speech that has not started yet. Say your name and your connection in one plain sentence, or open on a moment instead.
- “The dictionary defines.” A definition tells the room nothing about these two people. Define the word by showing it: one moment where you watched the couple be exactly that thing.
- “Happy wife, happy life.” The most groaned-at line in wedding speeches. It does not survive a room with both families in it.
- “What happens in Vegas.” It hints at a story and then refuses to tell it. Tell a story you can tell. A small true one beats a big hinted one.
- “Ball and chain.”A joke about marriage being a prison, told at a wedding, in front of the bride’s family. The partner is never the punchline.
- “I’ll keep this short.” Promising to be short does not make a speech shorter, and the guests have learned that it usually means the opposite. Cut a paragraph instead of announcing one.
What to Do Instead
Almost every cliché is a summary standing in for a story. “She is his rock” is the conclusion; the time she drove four hours in the snow is the evidence. The fix is nearly always the same: find the specific thing that made you reach for the phrase, and say that instead.
- Open on a moment, not an introduction. The first sentence should put the room somewhere: a parking lot, a kitchen, a bad first date. Our guide to funny best man speech openers has six shapes that work and the ones to retire.
- Replace every superlative with an example. Luckiest, soulmate, match made in heaven: each one is a claim. Give the proof and let the guests draw the conclusion themselves.
- Roast with true details, not stock lines.“Punching above his weight” is a template. The thing the groom actually did last summer is a joke.
- End on a picture, not a blessing.“A lifetime of love and happiness” is too big to see. The couple in their kitchen in a year, arguing about the thermostat, is not. The how to end a wedding speech guide covers the last thirty seconds in detail.
When the clichés are gone, the harder questions remain: does the opener land, is it too long, does the middle sag. The free speech check reads the whole draft and answers those.
Questions
What counts as a wedding speech cliché?
A line the guests have heard at enough weddings that they can finish it for you. "For those who don't know me," "the dictionary defines," "happy wife, happy life." The detector checks for about seventy of them, from the openers to the toast line, and scores the heavier ones harder than the mild ones.
Is my speech uploaded anywhere?
No. The detector is a list of phrases that runs in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server and nothing is stored anywhere except on your own device, so a refresh does not lose your draft.
How is the score worked out?
You start at 100. Each distinct cliché costs points according to how tired it is, a repeat of the same one costs a little more, and the total is nudged by length so a long speech with one borrowed line is not treated like a short toast with one. It is a cliché count, not a quality grade.
Does a low score mean the speech is bad?
It means the speech is leaning on lines that came with the occasion. The stories underneath are usually fine. Swap the heaviest clichés for something specific to the couple and the score climbs quickly. A high score means the words are yours; it does not say whether the jokes land or the ending works.
Is "here's to" really a cliché?
Once, at the end, it is the toast and it belongs there. The detector flags it so you can see if it turns up three times in the closing paragraph, which turns a toast into a list. Raising the glasses is never flagged, because every toast needs it.