To feel uncomfortable with groom's speech at his wedding?

[Dygger]

My cousin's son married his girlfriend of 12 years at the weekend and my partner and I were invited. During his speech at the reception the groom made a number of 'jokes' about being forced unwillingly into marriage. They weren't very funny or clearly ironic. There wasn't much tenderness or love emanating from him. The main topic of his speech was how he hadn't wanted to marry but she did and so here he was with his arm twisted behind his back. His friends (he plays football and there were a lot of football friends there) thought it was hilarious. He said something along the lines of 'I know you're all expecting me to tell you how much I love Katie, but we've lived together for 12 years and so neither of us have any illusions about each other.' She seemed a bit subdued. Her speech was very short but she did say she loved him 'despite everything' which got a laugh. It was all rather unsettling and created a strange atmosphere. We left as soon as we politely could.

Has anyone else experienced something like this? Did your own husbands say anything really inappropriate in their wedding speeches? I'm trying to understand why he did it. He's an English teacher, so he's someone who knows words matter.

My best friend's husband mistook the groom's speech for a roast. Attacked every aspect of her character under the guise of "dad jokes" and commented on her large breasts. It was awful.

My husband gave a lovely speech, in which he also announced the pregnancy of our first child.
My FIL then rambled on for about 15 minutes, telling jokes that nobody found funny and ending with “don’t eat yellow snow” … at our summer wedding.
Some people just like the limelight and think they are funnier than what they are.

There's 7 pages of pp's experiences of being at weddings before 🙄

Most just don't like it.

Yep, we went to one of DH’s many cousin’s wedding and the FOB speech was essentially a long list of her many faults going back to childhood (actual faults, like being a liar and shoplifter, not amusing anecdotes). He topped it off by thanking the groom for “taking her off our hands, because we didn’t think anyone ever would. Well, she’s your problem now Richard!”

And then the groom’s speech was even more bizarre, grovelling thanks to “his new parents Samantha and Bob”, while his actual parents, who we happened to know had stepped in and paid for the entire expensive wedding after Bob lost his job, weren’t mentioned or thanked at all and sat there with faces like thunder.

I'd be gutted if I was the bride in that situation. I have noticed these kind of "ball and chain" gags (if you can call them that) seem to be less common. When I was a kid all my family weddings seemed to have speeches about the man finally being tied down/trapped and the same cringey sex jokes. Over the past 10 years every wedding I've been too the speeches have all been pretty heartfelt & emotional. Even the best man speeches seem like less of a roast (although i did once go to two unrelated weddings a week apart where both best men had the same speech 🙈 presumably copied from the first link on google)

(although i did once go to two unrelated weddings a week apart where both best men had the same speech 🙈 presumably copied from the first link on google)

I wonder how many speeches are being written by ChatGPT now!

Yuck. Classic misogynist.

Andrew? Is that you?

Sounds like the groom did the speech for his mates. And is the kind that would say a person can't take a joke if they find him offensive. What a twat. My bil did an incredibly inappropriate speech at my wedding. Its still talked about some 20 yrs on. And yes he really did show his and my inlaws true feelings

I feel sorry for the bride, in your scenario.

I once heard a father of the bride make a speech, which included a joke about Jimmy Savile's crimes. That was really off / out of place.

My ex-husband’s speech opener was ‘On behalf of my first wife and I’….

That’s truly bloody awful.
I’d have done a Private Benjamin and left.

Yes, this is exactly what it sounds like. Man-child showing off to his football buddies. What a shit.

@spacewitch99 What?? (wtf, that is)
How did that sentence continue??

jeez....can you imagine how her family would have felt hearing that ???

If that was a daughter of mine, I'd have wanted to grab her and taken her home and tell her to forget the pig....but obviously...it's her choice to make, we can't choose our children's partners unfortunately!!!

Yeah not uncommon wedding speech humour unfortunately, but a bit shit. Courtesy of Ver Patriarchy.

I was at a wedding when this happened and it was awful. He was massively punching above his weight with her. She is beautiful while he was a weedy little twerp and no one knew what she saw in him. His speech didn’t mention a single kind word about his lovely new bride and he smirked and laughed his way through it. He turned out to be the most awful husband and they are now divorced.

@SeulementUneFois he just thanked everyone for coming to join us on our happy day…
After our divorce (5 years later) he did marry someone else and apparently said same thing at their wedding (but used the word ‘second’ instead of ‘first’…).

He is dead now - but not because he did this! 🥴

I am so tired of men pretending that they are forced into relationships and commitments. They state that they do it not to lose her, which doesn't make any fucking sense because if you marry her not to lose her, then why are you upset about locking her down? What they really want is a woman to be committed to them and do wifely duties for them while they remain single on their side.
And I am tired of hearing them complain about it and acting like anyone at all forced them.

My father made a few comments during our wedding which I was absolutely taken aback by, apparently it could have been much worse according to my husband, who thankfully had sight of it before the day- I was gutted tbh, he referred to my very early years when I was about 3-4 years old, my reading ability for example which he said was terrible as I just remembered the stories but it looked like I could read when so I was obviously faking it, and I was clearly a terrible person at that age. I felt completely humiliated having heard what he said, made me look at him very differently after that. Sad really. My husband was really cross that he had left stuff like this in when he had said to my father that it wasn’t appropriate or kind, he had taken out some worse things by all accounts, so I dread to know what that might have been. Not delivered lovingly let’s say.

Im sorry you feel that way op!

in this world some people unfortunately choose to be offended… and others choose… the opposite.

Judging by your answers, I'm sure the bride and groom wouldn’t choose to reluctantly marry one another in full view of their nearest and dearest and it’s simple a matter of you and the other ‘offended guests’ just do not have a sense of humour.

Move on from this and accept the issue is yours and no one else’s, especially the internet’s, to deal with. YABVVVVVVU!!!

Of course, everything I just said could be drivel, and I sincerely apologise if it is op, so why not ask the bride or groom directly? Then you would your true answer.

Get. A. Life. (Or a sense of humour op!).

Hahahahaha! You are funny!

Always two sides to the story, but this speech sound like a poor attempt to be funny.