Weddingbee boards

I've heard some amazing wedding toasts and some not-so-amazing toasts in my life, but the majority of them, whether good or bad, seemed to have had a lot of effort and heart put into them.  I've heard some pretty bad ones, but you could tell that the speaker just wasn't a great speaker, and was really nervous, and that is perfectly fine.

At our wedding, we had the usual speeches: My dad, My MOH, Mr. Peng's Best Man, and Mr. Peng gave a thank you speech.  Everyone did an amazing job, save for Mr. Peng's best man.  He didn't prepare for his speech at all, wanted to wing it, and then by the time he gave his speech, he was pretty drunk.  Combined with being completely unprepared, it was pretty uninspiring.  My maid of honor had a huge speech prepared, full of childhood memories and jokes, and was insistant on staying sober until she gave her speech, so the disparity between the speeches was super obvious, especially because the best man's crappy 1 minute speech followed my MOH's thoughtful, funny and touching (sober) speech.  He basically said "I want to thank everyone for coming, it's a beautiful night, Um... congratulations. I apologize for being so drunk."

I felt more bad for Mr. Peng than anything.  I mean this is the representation he got for his side of the wedding party.  I was pretty embarassed.  Mr. Peng followed it up with this huge heartfelt speech... and if you've ever met Mr. Peng, he is really soft spoken and pretty shy, so it was a big shining moment (By far, my favorite memory of the night).

I still love Mr. Peng's best man.  He's a wonderful friend, but I'm still pretty sad for Mr. Peng that he was sort of robbed of a nice toast.  I guess I sound sort of ungrateful, but I guess as a MOH/Best man at a wedding, I think I'd agonize for hours to find the right words to say, no matter how good or bad I was at public speaking.  I wish there was some way I could have made up for it that night, even though it really had nothing to do with me, and I really think that Mr. Peng quickly followed his Best Man's speech with his own to sort of compensate for its shittyness.  In hindsight, it made for my favorite moment of the night, hearing Mr. Peng's amazing speech, so for that I am grateful.

 Have any of you been disappointed by a speech made at your wedding in some way? What happened?

I don't mind toasts.  I think they can be pretty funny or poignant.  Unfortuantely you have no control over whether it will be a hot or a flop, or worse than a flop, (embarrassing or too revealing, or "You had a what....?")

I do think people can go too overboard with toasts though.  I think 1 good speech is great.  If another person has a particularly good reason for speaking fine.  But i think it becomes too boring , perhaps nauseating to make your guests sit through several minutes of toasts. Just my FYI.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed on our toasts!  I know my daughter (MOH) will do a great one.  However, my son (dude of honor) has Asperger's, and is very shy about public speaking.  It took a few months before he even agreed to do one.  His could be very good or very bad--and I suspect it will be quite short.