How many speeches??

[pollysproggle]

Wedding is in a few weeks, so far only best man and DP are doing speeches.
Is that enough?
My dad is lovely but for various reasons won't be doing a speech.
Should I do one too or is it best kept short and sweet with just the two speeches?

Don't want to bore anyone but also don't want a 'is that it?' reaction.

What is everyone else having?

2 speeches is fine! We had 3 at our wedding but have been to plenty with 2 (went to a wedding last weekend and there were only 2 speeches as the brides dad is dead).
Let’s be honest no one ever says ‘I wish the speeches had been longer’ do they?!

Three is the tradition but have as many or as few as you like! Guests always appreciate short and humorous speeches, original and not cut and paste from online.

Ah sounds good!
I've been to loads of wedding and enjoy the speeches but can't for the life of me remember how many people did one.

I would do if I had to but I have so much on my plate at the moment I don't think I could write one. Then I'd stress about whether it was boring/not funny etc

It's totally up to you - but I would feel a bit weird if my DH's best mate spoke at my wedding, but not me!

I did a speech - nothing fancy, just thanking people - and I'm so glad I did so that I had a chance to tell everyone all at once how happy I was that they were all there.

I would feel a bit weird if my DH's best mate spoke at my wedding, but not me!

This!

I hate this idea that the men must be allowed to speak and the women must remain silent.

But how do you get round this issue without having too many speeches or without taking one away from someone who feels they ought to be doing one because tradition?

Time limits. We had four speeches, but none longer than 5 mins so the total wasn't excessive.

DM was in charge of kicking DF if he started rambling (he didn't, but it was reassuring that we had an option to stop it if he started going on)

We had : me , dh, fil, my maid of honour and my best friend so 5 of us! Which was an hour.

Oh yes agreed! I really don't care about tradition in that respect, it's more about the quantity of speeches I was enquiringly about rather than who is doing them.

DP has written a speech that has all the thank you's in it so if I did one too it'd have to be about something else and with everything going on my brain really isn't working at the moment.

I'm going to rustle up a short speech I think and go last just to cap things off!

Traditionally it’s Father of the Bride, Groom and Best Man.

But it’s your wedding you can have what you like!

I think having 2 speeches would be fine, but what would be their purpose?

Traditionally, the father of the bride's job was to toast the bride and groom, the groom's job was to reply on behalf of both bride and groom and to toast the bridesmaids, and the best man's job was to reply on behalf of the bridesmaids. Obviously lots of padding too. With two speeches, you'd have to work out who was going to do what.

If you are going to have toasts as part of the speeches, someone ought to toast the bride and groom hi are, after all, the most important people there.

Obviously some brides and bridesmaids now like to give a speech too, but to be honest I wouldn't want to sit through an hour of speeches!