How to Give a Father of The Bride Speech

You've paid for the wedding and the catering and the dress. You've dealt with all the traumas, like the wrong color shoes, the wrong size engagement ring and last minute cancellations. Now you have one final task to prepare for. I hope you are sitting down. You are going to have to give a Father of the Bride speech at the reception.

There's no ducking out of this one. It is a tradition that the Father of the Bride gives the first speech after the wedding. And wedding etiquette demands that he should toast the new bride and groom in their lives together. This can prove quite daunting for most of us. Many of us are not used to standing up and speaking to more than a few people at a time so the prospect of standing up and speaking to a hundred people or more is very scary.

A good idea to help you with this situation is to take a step back and think about it for a moment. You know, even while you are doing your father of the bride speech, the main focus of the day will be on the happy couple and most of the time, because you will be referring to them so much, half of your audience will actually be looking at them any way. So a lot of the pressure is immediately off you.

As to what you need to say in your speech, as father of the bride, the main points you need to make are to thank various people and lead the toast to the happy couple. Apart from that you can say as much or as little as you want. It is probably a good idea to keep the tone upbeat, after all, it is a very happy occasion as well as a sad one for you.

Share some happy memories with the assembled guests if you like. Did your little girl always dress up as a princess as a child? You could say that she has now truly found her prince. Or, given your new son-in-law's profession, you could mention how pleased you are to be welcoming a plumber, or banker, or doctor into the family and how much you can now save on bills.

These type of light jokes always go down well with a crowd who are there to be entertained by what you say. And father of the bride speeches with touches of humor are always the best. Keep it clean and do not mention any unfortunate ticks or anatomically worrying details you have noticed about your new in-laws. There will be plenty of Sunday lunches in which you might have to face them across a dinner table, so keep everything on an even level.

In your thanks don't forget to thank the best man for doing his duties well, thank your own family and his family for coming and give your heartfelt thanks to the guests for their gifts and attendance. It is a very good idea to have a chat with your wife and daughter to see who else should be especially thanked on the day. Someone may have made the wedding cake specially, or they may have provided the catering etc. It is best to thank everyone. At the end, have an all-encompassing sentence something like: Thank you to anyone I haven't mentioned. This way all your bases are covered. However, you might still want to do some more research before pulling one off for yourself and for that I suggest you check every other information on father of the bride speeches available here in this site as well as elsewhere.

Everything You Need to Know to Create Your Own Amazing Wedding Speech!