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

[Jubblybub]

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?

Not as bad as some of these, but my BIL stood up at his wedding, sweating profusely and shaking, then said 3 sentences before sitting back down and leaving everyone in stunned silence. You'd think for how nervous he appeared, he'd written a sonnet. Nope. The only things he said revolved around how his now wife had lost of a lot weight "just for today" and "doesn't she look better".

I was mortified on her behalf.

At my DB's first wedding: I remember the BM just reading through ALL the wedding cards that had been given to my DB and exDSIL. Went on for ages. I don't remember much else of the speech - and I wouldn't have understood anything racy - but it was a LONG (and quite boring) speech. I also remember the FOB saying in his speech (addressing my DB and our side of the family), "I know you're all just foreigners but I suppose you're welcome in my family"...room went silent!! I was 8 (and a bridesmaid/flower girl). It was the first time I'd witnessed pretty direct racism.

BM opened with a story about how the groom soiled the bed the first time he slept with the bride… and it just got worse from there.

Was this my wedding???

If so, I should have taken this as the warning that it was. My ex turned out to be a controlling cunt, with a side of financial abuse to boot.

Reading the wedding cards used to be a thing it was people who couldn't attend the best man used to read them out i mean I have not seen it in years but can definitely remember in the 80s and 90s they were read out.

Most of the bad speeches I have encountered have just been too long, or too many. I went to a wedding where they opened up the floor so everyone who wanted to say a few words to the happy couple could come on up….fucking hell why? I just wanted my cake and have a dance, not to listen to 24 in jokes that mean nothing to most of the room.

Special mention to the father of the bride that listed his daughter’s GCSE and A level results in his speech, and to the pair of best men than made us watch a cringey 30 minute video of the bride’s brother’s band, that again was full of in jokes that most of the room didn’t get.

It’s not hard - say everyone looks beautiful, a funny yet heartwarming story or 2, happy to welcome you to/become part of your family, so proud of xyz. That’s it! Talk to the whole room, say nice things. 3-5 mins, tops. Done!

The wedding was in the extensive grounds of the brides imposing family home in Southern France. The fob was a wealthy evangelical Christian. His speech was all about him, and the killer line was his explanation that his worldly wealth came directly from God and all anyone had to do was accept the Lord and all this ( gesturing at the surroundings), could also be theirs. I have never felt less inclined to Christianity.

I've heard a lot of woeful and problematic speeches over the years.

My own wedding being one occasion - my (you won't be surprised to hear, now ex)H gave a long and rambling speech where he droned on, and on, about his marvellous mother (she was a toxic weapon of a woman) and how much he loved her. He did also appropriately thank my parents, bridesmaids, etc, all the required acknowledgments. I suddenly realised he was getting to the end and hadn't mentioned me - at all. Not a word. I panickily muttered as much to my DM, who then gesticulated at me and mouthed my name, whereupon my new husband said, disarmingly, how much he loved me. For the rest of the day people were saying, aw how cute. But I couldn't believe he had said nothing about us, meeting, our relationship, why he loved me, while spending many many minutes eulogising his bloody mother.

This was an indication of things to come, unfortunately as he turned out to be a very abusive arsehole - the thing was, at that point in our lives, he did adore me, but it lacked any practical meaning, like in that scenario, where he just didn't plan his speech or give any thought to it, so that without realising he just gabbled on about his mother and forgot his wife. On his wedding day.

The BM who I liked generally, and was funny, made a good speech in some respects but also never mentioned me, and spent the whole speech completely slagging off my H. I mean, I get that's part of it but there wasn't one single nice thing included in the speech.

Other notable recollections, included a groom getting very tearful (his DF was dying) during his speech and his new wife standing up, saying sharply to him, sit DOWN, Thomas, and grabbing the microphone out of his hand; a FOB saying 'we all wondered if Linda was ever getting married' (they had been together 14 years, happily, she was dying to be married, he thought she didn't care about getting married and so never asked and she spent YEARS hoping, and refusing to talk to him about it), then 'sure, lookit, if it doesn't work out, we have divorce here now' (Ireland), and another where the BM was so drunk, he got half way through the speech - badly - before he fell over, stocious drunk. Drink has a lot to answer for in many of these situations.

It’s not hard - say everyone looks beautiful, a funny yet heartwarming story or 2, happy to welcome you to/become part of your family, so proud of xyz. That’s it! Talk to the whole room, say nice things. 3-5 mins, tops. Done!

Exactly this!!

haha 😂
brilliant

Oh my actual god. WTAF 😱

Most speeches are boring- I limited ours to five minutes max.

At a family wedding there were 3 best men, apart from a cursory the bride looks great; it was a 20 minute brag fest of how successful and amazing their friendship group was and a comprehensive list of all their achievements (in fairness as a group they were quite successful- Grammy Awards, PL footballer etc but it wasn’t about the B&G at all!

One of the nicest wedding speeches I've ever heard was by a best man who I knew to be terribly shy, and who was visibly sweating and trembling. Everyone who knew him was feeling very nervous about his speech.

He stood up and said, "Anyone who knows me will know how scared I am of giving this speech. But when I was 8 years old I was the new kid at school standing alone in the corner of the playground and Dave was the boy who came over to me and asked me to come and join him and his friends, and ever since then he's been my best friend, so I guess I can do this for him. So I went on Google and I looked for tips about how to give a wedding speech, and I found an article that listed 7 things to include in a successful wedding speech. Number one on the list was tell a heartwarming anecdote. Well I've already done that. Number two on the list is to say something about the bride. Sarah, you look absolutely beautiful today and I know you make Dave really happy. Number three on the list is to tell a joke, so I found this joke...

He continued like that until he got to number 7 on the list, which was to propose a toast to the bride and groom. Job done.

Everyone was rooting for him and there wasn't a dry eye in the room.

It wasn't so much the worst thing I've heard, but my brother weirdly had two best men: one was a very Christian, quite shy, young man who droned on for ages and the other was considerably more confident and witty and a much more natural speaker. I can't remember which order they spoke in, but either way it was a bit toe-curling.

Best man's speech at our wedding was disgraceful - much, much more appropriate for a 21st (hubby was 36 when we got married, best man around same age). I almost walked out of the reception. Best man's was apologetic the next day, groveling. Every anniversary I contact him to remind him of how massively he c0cked up that speech/got it monumentally wrong.

The other best man speech which was abhorrent was for my friend and her professional footballer new husband: the best man energetically described how the groom liked to strap his c0ck down and run around the locker room, pretending he was female, amongst other stories...

This is great.

There are a few people who can do really clever, genuinely funny speeches - the best two I have ever heard were the groom and his BM (brother) at a very large country wedding. This is Ireland, they were big deals in the GAA (Gaelic Football) world and also very successful farmers. The BM had got married some months before, and when he stood up, he said clearly that groom had mocked his GAA prowess at his wedding, he told him he would take revenge and he planned to.

He then told a series of mortifying stories, one in particular of the groom's 21st birthday when he was so drunk he passed out in the toilets with his trousers around his ankles, his own father passed by him, and when asked who he was, declared: 'never seen him before in my life' and left him there.

It could have been awful but his storytelling was amazing - timing spot on, and also, he completely owned it - he didn't give a damn what anyone thought, knew his own family would love it (they did) and really leaned into it. It was the funniest speech ever, the guests fell apart laughing.

The groom got up and countered with several ripostes, also brilliant.

Most of us can't do that, and are better to stick to simple and sincere short speeches.

Went to one where the BM started his speech by saying the bride and groom come together like a plugged socket, which is a wonderful mental image to put in everyone's minds on a wedding day.

He later went on to say how the B & G were both very independent people, so, "I know if one of them died the other one would be alright"

My brother's best man said the name of my brother's ex, not his brand-new wife's.

Went to one of quite a young couple where the groom’s entire speech was “Thanks for coming. You all look great. Let’s get pissed”. Not a single word about his new wife and the only speech I can recall nearly 20 years later word for word! Marriage didn’t last…

Non-denominational civil wedding of Catholic girl/protestant guy with a mixed crowd of family & friends.
The ex-army buddy Protestant best man of the groom thought it would be hilarious to throw in jokes about the brides thoroughly mixed Catholic/protestant side of the family being terrorists and in the IRA.
It wouldn’t have been funny under any circumstances but certainly wasn’t given that her father had been MURDERED by the IRA when she was a kid, in a bomb blast along with many others innocent civilians.
He was eventually cut short, and proceeded to be a drunken prick the rest of the night before being thrown out for propositioning women who did t want to be anywhere near him. His wife and teen kids were there too. God knows why he’d been chosen as the BM, some utter tosh about ‘serving’ together and him being a great bloke to have when the chips were down etc.

And yes, he was well aware of the family history. The uncle standing in for the father even referenced it in his speech, how he’d been proud to stand in for his beloved brother who was looking down on them all etc etc

At my wedding my stepfather, who actually wasn't supposed to speak at all, stood up and announced to everyone that since we hadn't asked for any presents (or any kind of financial help with wedding costs) from anyone he would like everyone to donate to a charity he had founded (and which I absolutely did NOT support). He then went on (for nearly quarter of an hour) to tell everyone about said charity, how he alone had founded it, and basically just self promoted himself about how wonderful and how charitable a person he was.

My husband and I actually walked out during this onto a nearby terrace and had a drink together as we just couldn't bear having to listen to him, but also didn't want to make a big scene.

Needless to say, not many people did end up donating, and we got lots of very sympathetic messages from our guests over the next few days. Luckily as most of them knew him and his reputation it didn't ruin our day and lots of people saw the funny side of it too.

Unsurprisingly we went full NC with him shortly afterwards.

The worst FoB speech I ever heard was at a mixed race wedding, white bride, black groom. FoB started his speech by announcing that his daughter was a wog. He then explained that is stood for woman of God. The atmosphere was icy and the collective shocked gasp from the guests was very loud. He was known for being an arse.

After reading these. I think speeches should be like award ceremonies the venue play music when the speech has over run 😀

Another one - 2 very Christian young people, early 20s, who were ‘waiting’ to get married before doing the deed. The older brothers who’d left the church and was a bit of a cynic about it, went on and ON about how they were only getting married so they could have a ‘shag’… went down like a lead balloon as you can imagine when about 75% of the audience were people from the same evangelical church…