Friend or guest · Short · about a minute and a half · 212 words
Host's Welcome Wedding Toast Before Dinner (Short, 90 Seconds)
The couple's close friend, who officiated an hour earlier, welcomes the room and gives the first toast before dinner is served
Given by Wilder, a friend of the couple and the officiant, for Zora and Nerys. The names are made up.
The speech
Good evening, everyone, and welcome. I'm Wilder. An hour ago I was the one in the robe up front. Now I am the one standing between you and dinner, and I can feel it.
I have known Zora and Nerys since the week they became a pair, and the thing I can tell you about them I learned at the Denver airport in February of last year. Our flight was canceled. Nine hours in a gate area. Zora made friends with the gate agent, learned her kids' names, and by hour three was getting updates before the screens did. Nerys sat on the floor with a laptop and built a spreadsheet of every other way out of that city. Between them they got eleven strangers home that night, and then us.
That is the whole marriage, as far as I can tell. One of them talks to the people, one of them builds the plan, and nobody gets left at the gate.
Zora, Nerys, I was honored to say the words today. I am more honored to be the friend you call when the flight is canceled.
Please raise a glass, and then please sit, because the kitchen has been very patient. To Zora and Nerys. Nobody gets left at the gate.
Why it works: It does the host's job fast, uses one story with a place and a number to show the two of them as a team, and ends on a line that doubles as the toast.
Make It Yours
Borrow the shape, not the sentences. This one is built on a single story that only its speaker could tell, and the room can hear a borrowed story from the back. Keep the order of the parts, the length, and the way it turns from the story to the partner, and put your own detail in each slot. The short wedding toasts walks through each part.
Tools for This Speech
Have a draft already?
The free speech check reads it the way a room would: what lands, what gets a polite smile, what to cut, and how long it runs. No account.
Check my speech