Second Marriage Wedding Speech: What to Say (4 Examples)

Example 1: Best man, also best man at the first wedding (about three minutes)

Good evening, everyone. I'm Pete, and I have been Neil's closest friend since we shared a dorm room in 1998, which he will tell you was his idea. Most things are.

Some of you know I've done this job for Neil before. I'll say one thing about that and then leave it where it belongs: he has had harder years than he lets on, and he came through them as himself.

A few years ago Neil started cooking Sunday dinner. Every week, for whoever turned up. The chairs did not match. The chicken was sometimes a theory. But if you were on your own that weekend, you went to Neil's, and he fed you, and he never made a thing of it. I went most Sundays. I was not always great company. He never mentioned that either.

Dana came to one of those dinners as somebody's plus one. Three Sundays later I walked into the kitchen and she was the one telling him the chicken needed another ten minutes. He was listening. I had never seen Neil listen about chicken. Maya was at the table doing homework and reviewing the two of them like a judge on a cooking show, and at one point she looked at me and said, "He's fine." High praise.

That is the whole story. Neil built a table where anyone could sit, and the right two people sat down at it.

Maya, you were the first one at that table to say what you thought of him, and you were right.

Dana, I have never seen him as settled as he is when you are in the room. There was nothing to fix. You just made the chairs match. You are family now.

So please, everyone, stand and raise your glasses. To Neil and Dana, and to Maya. To the next part.

Why it works: one plain sentence about the past, early, then the speech never looks back. The story is recent and puts the partner and her daughter in the scene.

Example 2: Father of the bride, two kids in the wedding party (about three minutes)

Good evening. I'm Frank, Laura's dad, and before anything else I want to say this to Jack and Ava: you two walked your mom down the aisle today, and you did it better than I would have.

I want to tell you about one Saturday. Two springs ago, Laura decided Jack was going to learn to ride a bike, and she was going to teach him, in the parking lot behind the library, with Ava on her hip. I happened to drive past. What I saw was my daughter jogging beside a wobbling bike, holding a four-year-old, saying "you've got it, you've got it" in a voice with no doubt in it at all, for what must have been the fortieth time. He got it on the forty-first. She did not even put Ava down to cheer. She just said, "There he goes," and let him go.

Laura has had a few hard years, and I will not say more than that, except that she never once let them land on those two kids. That is who she is. She holds what needs holding, she runs beside what needs running beside, and when it is time to let go, she lets go.

Sam. The first time you came to Sunday lunch, you spent forty minutes on the floor with Ava building a train track that did not connect to anything, and you did not look at your phone once. Jack tested you for about a month after that. I know because he reported back to me. You passed. You did not come to take anything over. You came to help hold it. We are glad you are ours now.

Please stand and raise your glasses. To Laura and Sam. May you always know when to hold on, and when to let go.

Why it works: the kids are named in the first breath, the story is one recent scene, and the sentence about the past protects the kids instead of describing anything.

Example 3: Adult daughter at her father's second wedding (about three minutes)

Hi, everyone. I'm Rachel, Dennis's daughter, and I will admit right away that when my dad told me he had met someone, I was thirty-one years old and I reacted like I was thirteen. He waited me out.

Here is what I know about my dad. He retired four years ago and immediately discovered that he could not operate his own television. He called me. He called me a lot. "Rachel, the screen says input." I would talk him through it, and I began to suspect that the television was fine and the phone calls were the point.

The calls stopped around the time he met Marianne. The first time I visited after that, the remotes were labeled. Little strips of tape. "TV." "Sound." "Do not touch." I asked who did that and he said, "Marianne," in a voice I had not heard from him in a long time. That was when I grew up about it.

Marianne, I have watched you with him for two years now. You do not finish his sentences. You wait, because you know he gets there. You laugh at the raccoon story, which the rest of us retired in 2009. You got him to say what he wanted out loud, which nobody has ever managed. I am not going to call you my stepmother, because we are both grown and it sounds like a fairy tale. I am going to call you family, because that is what you are. Luke, your mom came as a package deal, and the same goes for you.

Dad, you have spent your whole life making sure everyone else was taken care of, and I am glad there is finally somebody labeling the remotes for you.

Please stand and raise your glasses. To Dennis and Marianne. May the input always be set to the right one.

Why it works: her mother is alive and the speech never mentions her. Admitting she took time to come around earns a laugh at her own expense and makes the welcome mean more.

Example 4: Widow speaking for the couple, late husband named once (about three minutes)

Thank you all for being here. Joanne and I did not want a big wedding, and then we wrote the list. So this is the small one.

I want to say one name tonight, and then I want to talk about the woman I just married. The name is Tom. He would have liked Joanne a great deal, and he would have told her the canoe story within ten minutes of meeting her, so she has been spared at least one thing.

Sophie. Ben. You two are the reason this day happened. When I was not sure, you were sure. Ben, you told me to say yes before she had asked me anything, which was presumptuous and correct. Sophie, you drove four hours on a Tuesday to meet her, and you called me from the car on the way home and said, "Mom, she's great, stop worrying." I stopped worrying.

To the people who brought casseroles for longer than was reasonable, who sat in my kitchen and said nothing when nothing was the right thing: you know who you are. You held this family up. You are the reason there was a family left to add to.

Joanne. We met in a choir, and I did not want to be there. My sister signed me up. You were the alto next to me who kept quietly pointing at the right line when I lost my place, which was often. You have been doing that ever since. You learned Sophie's coffee order before you had met her. You never once asked me to be anyone other than who I was.

I did not think I would stand here again. I am very glad to be wrong.

So please, all of you, raise your glasses. To Joanne. To Sophie and Ben. To the next part.

Why it works: the late husband is named once, early, with one true thing, then the speech moves on to the woman she is marrying. The kids are thanked first. The toast looks forward.