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What's the worst thing you've heard in a wedding speech?

324 replies

Jubblybub · 21/09/2025 21:45

Was reading the thread about the best man's speech upsetting people and it got me thinking of some of the awful wedding speeches Ive had to listen to.

My BIL's best man at his wedding to my sister was awful, he made anti-semitic and homophobic comments in his speech (my sister's godfather is Jewish and gay and there were a number of gay and Jewish guests), made sexual remarks about my sister and had a really weird part of his speech that he had pre-recorded for everyone to watch. I won't go into specifics because it would be very outing but that section alone was 20 minutes long. The whole speech was excruciating and had me seriously wondering why my BIL has a friend like this (BIL could not be more different) never mind why he would have wanted this one as his best man.

At another wedding I went to, the father of the bride actually said at the beginning of his speech, "the bridesmaids and flower girls are looking beautiful, I hope there's no pedos here..." He then went on to talk about the stag do in great detail, including a strip club visit and how he had never had the experience of being in a nightclub with bottles of Grey Goose on their private table being accosted by beautiful, half-naked women until he met the groom and this was just one of the reasons why he was so happy to welcome him into the family. At the same wedding the groom's speech included broken down costings of the entire wedding, "thank you to mum and dad for paying £5k for our photographer, thanks to gran for bride's 10k wedding dress, thanks to parents in law for spending £xk on the catering" which was really bizarre.

Any other stories of wild things said in wedding speeches?

OP posts:
sashh · 22/09/2025 11:34

JDM625 · 21/09/2025 22:25

More cringe than horrendous:

-One best man talked on and on about old times with the groom, nights out pissed up and hints that there were either lots of woman in his past and/or possibly prostitutes!
-Another, when I was much younger, the best man asked all women in the crowd to hand back house keys to the grooms house. Multiple, single, young women got up and handed back keys. 😕

At my brother's wedding the brides father did the same, slightly more than a few though, it was every man in the room. The keys made quite a pile.

Then the best man got up and said, "Aluminium ladders £20.99 and B and Q" which was an advert at the time, the tag line was something like, "Prices so good you have to tell someone".

Now this wedding was in Plymouth but most of us on the groom's had driven down from the North West. The advert had been shown in the North of England but not the south.

Cue the northerners laughing and the southerners wondering what the hell was he talking about.

Peculiah · 22/09/2025 11:36

This one might need a trigger warning for csa.

Father of the groom hur-hur-hurred about the groom losing his virginity in Thailand as a teenager. Tbf it wasn’t completely obvious to the room that what he was referring to was a trip they had taken to a brothel when he was 14.

He was a free spirit who paid sporadic attention to his ds, and probably a measure of how messed the groom was that his df was invited to the wedding. The bride looked like she might stab him.

shhblackbag · 22/09/2025 11:36

PrincessFairyWren · 22/09/2025 09:34

My DH made a terribly rambling speech at our wedding. Then he encouraged everyone to sing happy birthday to his mother. Which doesn’t sound too bad because it was her birthday but the shit had hit the fan with me and my side because the the wedding had been booked and deposit paid before I knew MIL’s birthday. I had begged him not to mention it but he said that he felt pressured. Pressured by the pain in the arse that actually makes life hell when she isn’t the centre of attention and the entire reason MIL’s birthday was a problem. (Most people can be normal about these things).

Then DH sat down without even mentioning me or our wedding.

I was fucking livid.

I'm assuming he has redeeming points that made you stay married because that plus an awful MIL would have me looking for the hills.

Complete cringe.

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

TurraeaFloribunda · 22/09/2025 11:36

JDM625 · 21/09/2025 22:25

More cringe than horrendous:

-One best man talked on and on about old times with the groom, nights out pissed up and hints that there were either lots of woman in his past and/or possibly prostitutes!
-Another, when I was much younger, the best man asked all women in the crowd to hand back house keys to the grooms house. Multiple, single, young women got up and handed back keys. 😕

I was at a very beautiful wedding where the groom pulled the same gag 🙄 He hadn’t got round to writing a speech so he just stood up and said something along the lines of “I’m not going to bore you with a speech but I know my wife liked to get around a bit but now we are married that has to stop so can anyone who still has the back door keys return them now” and got all his mates to come up and drop their keys in s bowl.The lovely bride was as beautiful and classy as the wedding, and quite reserved. She was mortified.

Of course, it turned out that he was the one sneaking women in through the back door…

theDudesmummy · 22/09/2025 11:36

@verybighouseinthecountry that is one of the worst things I have ever heard. I feel furious and borderline violent to that man just reading that (I am the mother of a child with differences, not Deaf though).

Calliopespa · 22/09/2025 11:39

The groom thanked the brides sister for not wearing knickers and keeping the flies away from the wedding cake.

That's practically an attempt to say the most offensive thing about her he could dream up. Who could be so desperate to make people laugh?

LookAtThatMartin · 22/09/2025 11:39

My sister lost a lot of weight prior to the wedding. She was still losing but had about 3 stones that she wanted to lose. On the wedding day, she truly looked stunning - I was so pleased that she was feeling happier in her skin.
Unfortunately, during the best man’s speech, he ad-libbed a lot and said ‘ can I say how nice ‘bride’ looks, and how lucky she is that she doesn’t sweat much for a fat lass’.
M i c - D r o p.
It was just awful.

cornishschools · 22/09/2025 11:40

AffIt · 21/09/2025 22:58

Two stand out - one where the father of the bride essentially spent 45 mins banging on about the talents and virtues of the bride's SISTER and didn't mention the bride once, apart from her name at the beginning of the speech. It was utterly mortifying - the sister looked horribly embarrassed, the bride was clearly fighting back tears and the whole room was like 'WTF?'.

The second was the wedding of a friend who married a woman from a very, VERY wealthy family - Daddy had paid for everything and dictated the guest list, so the room was stuffed with his equally wealthy business cronies and the B&G had only been allowed to invite about 20 people between them. The FotB speech was an exercise in self-congratulation and it was really awful.

However, I have been to A LOT of weddings over the years and the vast majority have been brilliant, so these stand out in isolation!

The first thing I thought of was a wedding where the father of the bride's speech was basically about how great the sister was! It was so embarrassing, for everyone! (The one I'm talking about was almost 20 years ago - there's part of me that hopes it was the same wedding and there aren't loads of these types of dads around, but presumably this is more common than we'd like to think...)

Zodiacrobat · 22/09/2025 11:41

bitterexwife · 22/09/2025 09:11

Father of the bride thinking he was hilarious and laughing his head off telling the room about when bride was a teenager, slitting her wrists, blood everywhere.
room fell understandably silent whilst he tried to compose himself after all the laughter

How awful. What a psychopath! No wonder she felt terrible in her teenage years with a father that laughs at suicide attempts. Oh my god. This is the worst!

HairsprayBabe · 22/09/2025 11:41

It was my own wedding.
A family wedding, filled with nannas and children, just how we wanted it. Wholesome.

We knew the best man was nervous and we had said 1000 times you absolutely do not have to do a speech if you don't want to it's fine, but he assured us he wanted to and he was looking forwards to it.

He said Hello, congratulations to the bride and groom, etc.

Lost his place in his notes

Panicked

"[the groom] is a lovely man but I don't know why Hairspray married him after she found out he shat in a cupboard"

Fin.

Poor man was found very pale at the bar profusely sweating and apologising.

Calliopespa · 22/09/2025 11:42

BramStoner · 21/09/2025 23:10

The key thing is a well-known and obvious joke.

I've not seen it before, but it has to be a staged joke.

I mean why would they have all brought the keys with them anyway.

Calliopespa · 22/09/2025 11:42

HairsprayBabe · 22/09/2025 11:41

It was my own wedding.
A family wedding, filled with nannas and children, just how we wanted it. Wholesome.

We knew the best man was nervous and we had said 1000 times you absolutely do not have to do a speech if you don't want to it's fine, but he assured us he wanted to and he was looking forwards to it.

He said Hello, congratulations to the bride and groom, etc.

Lost his place in his notes

Panicked

"[the groom] is a lovely man but I don't know why Hairspray married him after she found out he shat in a cupboard"

Fin.

Poor man was found very pale at the bar profusely sweating and apologising.

Had he shat in a cupboard?
(just wondering ...)

samlett · 22/09/2025 11:44

Wexone · 22/09/2025 11:32

Its basically saying that the bride had a list of people to call upon when she wanted play time at night so the all had a key to let themselves when she called them

Really saying she slept around in my opinion which is horrible to me

Yes everyone can work that out. Isn't it really obvious that it's a joke though. The poster meant why do it in the speech publicly.

Wexone · 22/09/2025 11:46

samlett · 22/09/2025 11:44

Yes everyone can work that out. Isn't it really obvious that it's a joke though. The poster meant why do it in the speech publicly.

Apologies i got it wrong - yes whoever was doing the speech would have arranged with them before to give them keys and bring it up to the top table during the speech, suppose to be a laugh for the speech

Calliopespa · 22/09/2025 11:47

honeylulu · 21/09/2025 23:21

At my cousin's wedding (she was the bride) the two best men did a very long and laddish double act speech going through all the groom's drunken exploits and casual encounters of days gone by. Some of the tales were quite vile (stuff like golden showers etc). I am no prude but was pretty aghast, then I caught a glimpse of my grandparents horrified faces, yikes.

Another wedding, this was a friend from school who married very young, about 20. Groom's best man had never been to a wedding before and clearly had no idea what was expected in terms of a speech. He said basically "I've known Ian for a few years down the pub, we like a few drinks, he's a great bloke and good luck to him". No mention at all of the bride or any reference to the wedding at all.

I am no prude but was pretty aghast, then I caught a glimpse of my grandparents horrified faces, yikes.

I actually think inappropriate speeches can be really cruel to family members. These are important events for the family, yet the "hilarious" speeches normally cater to the run of the mill guests who probably won't even remember the wedding sufficiently to distinguish it from dozens of others.

HairsprayBabe · 22/09/2025 11:48

@Calliopespa apparently so, got locked in a supply cupboard as a teenager and when you have to go you have to go - before I met him but I was aware - a joke "the boys" find hilarious but not something I expected to be brought up at our nuptials.

I did feel terribly sorry for the best man, I was happy to laugh it off, my MIL was furious but she is always an angry little woman.

Calliopespa · 22/09/2025 11:50

Wexone · 22/09/2025 11:46

Apologies i got it wrong - yes whoever was doing the speech would have arranged with them before to give them keys and bring it up to the top table during the speech, suppose to be a laugh for the speech

Edited

I assumed it was a joke and thought the posters reporting it happened at a wedding they were at had not realised it was. I'm still not sure some of them do realise.

Never seen it in real life though (thank goodness 🙄).

InWalksBarberalla · 22/09/2025 11:51

The worst by far was when the father of the groom said that the bride had issued an ultimatum to get married or she'd leave him and how he had advised his son not to get married. Nobody knew where to look.

Calliopespa · 22/09/2025 11:51

HairsprayBabe · 22/09/2025 11:48

@Calliopespa apparently so, got locked in a supply cupboard as a teenager and when you have to go you have to go - before I met him but I was aware - a joke "the boys" find hilarious but not something I expected to be brought up at our nuptials.

I did feel terribly sorry for the best man, I was happy to laugh it off, my MIL was furious but she is always an angry little woman.

Yes it isn't too compromising in the bigger scheme of things, just slightly unexpected!

Zodiacrobat · 22/09/2025 11:53

CuteOrangeElephant · 22/09/2025 10:50

Father of the bride started his speech with saying how his daughter ruined his wife's vagina when she was born.

Oh dear lord.

Fionasapples · 22/09/2025 11:56

The bride's parents had recently split up. In her dad's speech he said he hoped the young couple would have a marriage as happy as his and how he and his almost ex-wife never had a cross word. Everyone was side eyeing each other or studying their shoes.

FamBae · 22/09/2025 11:58

CheeseWisely · 21/09/2025 22:26

My Father at my half-brother’s wedding telling stories about all the things he’d done for his Son because ‘that’s what you do for your kids’ while I was squeezing my plus-ones hand blue under the table because that same doting parent walked out on me without looking back when I was 3 months old. Absolute raging twat.

Sorry quoted wrong post 🤪

HairsprayBabe · 22/09/2025 11:58

@Calliopespa it was the language I think that upset her the most - pooed in a cupboard would have been fine - probably

Shat put the cat amongst the pigeons as it were.

The image of him running away from the mic is permanently glued into my brain however poor bloke!

Cyclebabble · 22/09/2025 12:02

Very nervous Best Man who did not know the bride at all well. Bride was a good friend, done well at work and quite career orientated. The BM described her as very domesticated, knowing her place and just the right woman to be looking after the groom and bearing his children. He clearly was not joking which made it all the more gob smacking.

Scully01 · 22/09/2025 12:03

The grooms best man, who happened to be the grooms dad, talking about finding his sons wank sock. So bloody awkward. This was quite a posh wedding as well 😄