Best Friend Wedding Speech: What to Say (With 4 Examples)

Example 1: A woman speaking for her best friend, the groom (about three minutes)

Good evening, everyone. I'm Robin. Hassan and I met at nineteen, working the concession stand at the Rialto, where he taught me to fill a large popcorn so it looked full and was mostly air. He has asked me not to tell the theater.

I'm going to tell you about the worst quality Hassan has, because it turns out to be the best one.

Hassan does not text back. I have sent this man a question on a Monday and gotten the answer on a Thursday, along with a photo of a dog he met. If you have his number, you know.

Here is the other thing I know. Five years ago my dad had a heart attack on a Sunday night. I sent one text from the hospital parking lot. I didn't hear back from Hassan. Three and a half hours later, he walked into the waiting room with two coffees and a phone charger, because he knew mine would be dead. He had read the text, gotten in the car, and driven. He didn't reply because he was busy coming.

That's Hassan. Terrible at the small stuff. Never once missed the big stuff.

Then he met Lucy. About two months in, I texted him a question and he answered in four minutes. I called to make sure he was okay. He said, "Lucy says it's rude to leave people on read." Lucy, I had been saying that for nine years. You said it once.

But that isn't really what changed. What changed is that he started showing up for the small stuff too. The guy who drove through the night for me now drives to the good bakery every Saturday, because she likes the bread there and it sells out by nine.

Lucy, he loves you in the big ways and the small ones, and you're the first person I've watched him do both for. Thank you for teaching him to text back.

Please stand and raise your glasses. To Hassan and Lucy. May you always answer each other first.

The tease (he never texts back) becomes his best quality, and the turn reuses it. She never mentions being a woman on the groom's side. Nobody needed her to.

Example 2: A man speaking for his best friend, the bride (about three minutes)

Hi, everyone. I'm Ezra. Yes, I'm on the bride's side. I have been since ninth-grade marching band, when Yasmin played second trumpet and I carried a tuba twice my size, and she decided, without consulting me, that we were friends.

The first thing you should know about Yasmin is that she ranks things. In high school she ranked every pizza place within ten miles of our school, with weighted categories, and when I said her number three was wrong, she emailed me the methodology. It was four pages. She has ranked apartments, airlines, and, I'm told, the bridesmaid dresses, with a tiebreaker round.

Here's what took me years to figure out. The spreadsheets were never about winning. They were about getting it right for people. When I moved to Denver at twenty-four, not knowing a single person in the city, I got an email from Yasmin my first night there. It was every bar in my neighborhood with a trivia night, ranked. And every Sunday for the next year, she called to ask which one I'd tried and whether I'd talked to anybody. I met most of my Denver friends at number two.

That is Yasmin. She does the homework so the people she loves don't have to.

So when she started seeing Graham, I asked the obvious question. Did you make a spreadsheet? She said, "No. I didn't need one." It is the only big decision I have ever seen her make without one.

Graham, I've watched how you are with her. You don't argue with the methodology. You ask which one is number one and you go get it. And when she has spent a whole week getting things right for everybody else, you're the one who notices. You make dinner, and you don't ask her to rate it. She has been doing the homework for all of us since she was fourteen. Now somebody does it for her.

Everyone, please stand and raise your glasses. To Yasmin and Graham. Number one, no tiebreaker needed.

One warm line handles being a man on the bride's side. The spreadsheet roast turns into the kindest thing said about her all night, and the toast calls back to it.

Example 3: The friend who introduced them (about three minutes)

Hello, everyone. I'm Imani. Noor and I met our first week of college, when she knocked on my door at seven in the morning to tell me the dining hall had waffles. She was right about the waffles.

Since a few of you have already brought it up at the bar: yes, I introduced them. Four years ago, at my birthday dinner, I sat Noor next to my coworker Bex and went to the other end of the table. Everything after that, they did.

Noor cannot wait. For anything. She gives Christmas presents in early November because she can't stand holding onto them. She told me what she'd gotten me for my thirtieth while I was still unwrapping it. If you have ever planned a surprise for her, I'm sorry. She knew.

For a long time I thought that was impatience. It isn't. Noor can't wait because she wants you to have the good thing now. The present, the news, the waffles. When my grandmother died, Noor was on my couch before I had finished telling her, with groceries, because she couldn't stand the idea of me sitting alone for one more hour. She has never made anybody she loves wait for her to show up.

Then she met Bex, who is the most patient person I have ever worked with. Bex reads the whole manual. Bex lets the bread rise twice. About a month in, I asked Bex what she thought of my friend, and she said, "She's a lot. I'd like a lot more of it."

Noor, you called me from the parking lot after that dinner because you couldn't wait to tell me about her. Bex, you waited exactly as long as you needed to, and then you didn't wait at all. I've watched you slow her down just enough to enjoy things, and I've watched her hurry you toward the good parts. You're better at both together.

Please stand and raise your glasses. To Noor and Bex. Worth the wait, and worth not waiting.

The introduction gets one short paragraph, then goes straight back to the couple. Noor's impatience becomes her best quality, and Bex gets a real line of her own.

Example 4: A lifelong friend at a small wedding with no wedding party (about three minutes)

Hi, everybody. I'm Ruben. There are twenty-six of us here, so I can see every one of your faces, which is more pressure than I was promised. Desmond asked me on Tuesday to say a couple of words. I'm going to say more than two. Sorry, Des.

Desmond and I met in second grade, when Mrs. Ortiz sat us together because our last names were next to each other on the roll. He asked to move. She said no. That was about thirty years ago, and he hasn't asked since.

Here's the thing everyone in this backyard knows about Desmond. He does not decide things quickly. He took nine months to buy a couch. Nine. He sat on one sofa so many times the salesman started greeting him by name. Lorna, I believe you once timed him choosing a sandwich.

But here's what happens after Desmond decides. He keeps it. He still has the couch. He has had the same barber for eighteen years. He still has me, and I have given him reasons to reconsider. When Desmond chooses something, the choosing is slow because he plans to keep it for good.

Which is why, three years ago, when he called me one week after meeting Nell and said, "I think this is it," I sat down on my kitchen floor. One week. The man took nine months on a couch.

Nell, I have sat across from the two of you at enough dinners at this very picnic table to know what I'm looking at. He doesn't deliberate around you. He doesn't check the measurements. Every time you come into a room, he turns toward you like he already knows where he wants to be. In thirty years I have never seen him that sure of anything that fast. And I have never seen him more right.

So everyone, stand up if you can and raise whatever you're holding. To Desmond and Nell. The fastest decision he ever made, and the one he'll keep the longest.

It uses the small room, naming a guest and the backyard. The tease about slow decisions turns into loyalty, and the toast pays it off.