Speech by Dan

Speech Type: Best man
Speech Creator: Dan
Speech Date: Jun2007
God afternoon ladies and gentlemen,
Doobre vecher dama e vosepoda

order
Pass to father of the bride / groom ? . . . .dad ?

Now Id like to pass you over to Dominick who will likely tell you that Im a compulsive liar and that you should disregard every thing in my speech as the rambelings of a mad man. Ladies and Gentlemen the groom.

For those of you who are not aware I am Dominick's older, smarter, stronger, and more handsome brother . . .

Well the older bit is true.

It is a great honour for me to be asked to be the best man, I think Ive been successful, I collected the correct clothes, wrote my speech in advance, we arrived to the church ON TIME, ,fairly SOBER, and unusually for Dom dressed SMARTLY and looking presentable. Its amazing what a flannel and some soap can do.

I have known Dominick for . . . well all of his life, and it has been hard for me to get all my fondest memories into one 43 minute speech. . . but Im going to try.

They say that wedding crowds are the most forgiving audiences and will laugh at the lamest joke. . .

Over the next few minutes I will surely be testing that theory. First there are a few formalities that I believe it is customary for a best man to deal.

So first on behalf of the bridesmaids thank you to Dominick and Katya for their kind words . . and please all join me in toasting the brides maids

olga,
rina,
jay,
abi,
achare,
and pramee,

I hope you will agree they look beautiful. . .

. . . they have done a great job today of getting katya here on time, and that's no mean feat as I hear she put up quite a fight.

Everyone please raise your glasses. . . THE BRIDESMAIDS.

-the brides maids-

I would also like to thank our Anton the page boy and the ushers Dave, Rich and Paul, who also look beautiful.

Everyone please raise your glasses . . . THE USHERS.

-the ushers-

I would also on a personal note like to thank Paul who organised a fantastic stag night, and allowed me to concentrate on writing this speech and spend some time on trying to organise my own wedding. Paul both Dawn and myself thank you.

Im sure Dominick and Katya would also like to thank every one else involved who are Im afraid too numerous to mention.

Ok that's the end of the formalities . . .

I was given one very important piece of advice about this speech from a good friend of mine he said “the speech should only last as long as it takes the groom to make love” So ladies and gentlemen thank you {sit down for a couple of seconds}

So where to start I though to myself . . . and being a bit of a geek the obvious place seemed to be the internet. so with the resources of google at my fingertips I dutifully began searching the web.

Unfortunately I was not that selective with my search phrase and my request for

Wedding,
Best man,
Russian,
Brides,

Took me to some slightly worse than disreputable website. After a couple of hours searching I remembered I was supposed to be looking for Best Man tips.

So I started again, and quickly found a multitude of other peoples speeches. . . great I thought to myself this is going to be easy . . . but try as hard as I did I still could not find a speech where the groom is called Dominick and the bride Katya.

You have already witnessed one Russian tradition in the bread earlier, and I am sure that it hasn't escaped your attention that I seem to be sporting a rather fetching pink sash. I have been told that this says The Honourable Witness however I'm still not convinced that this is Dominick playing a last prank on me, and that it does not really say miss Russia 2007.

There were also a couple of other Russian wedding traditions that I read about, one is for the bride and groom to tour around the city after the ceremony looking at the sights. So I hope on the way here

[look at dom n katya]

You both enjoyed what the fine town of Watford had to offer.

There is also a tradition of stealing the bride,

This is known as Krazha nevesta in Russian.

I believe that this is to teach Dominick that he needs to keep a close eye on his new wife. Any one who manages to get Katya away is allowed to demand a ransom. As the “honourable witness” I'm going to set this ransom, I don't know if I really have the power to do this but I'm going to do it anyway. The ransom is you get to demand that Dom does a Kosak dance for you.

Now I know that I'm supposed to talk about all the grooms ex girlfriends but I'm pretty sure that Katya isn't interested in all that, suffice to say 76 seems to be your lucky number Dom.

I first meet Katya a couple of years ago and I think everyone knew that Dom was smitten as he started to learn Russian all most straight away . . . he took great delight is calling me all sorts of rude things in his finest Slavic.

They have been together now for a few years, and a couple of while ago Katya took him to Russia. This is where he got to meet his future parents in law for the first time.

ZA VASS! Yuri ee Galina [personal toast]

We are delighted to welcome Katya into our family and I hope you are equally thrilled to welcome Dom.

Well ok but hopefully you can at least tolerate him. . .

A lot of people wonder what Dominick actually does for a living, and to be honest Ive never been able to express it concisely so I asked him to sum it up in one sentence and he said

“I visualise architecture. Make a joke out of that . . . ”

So I have tried . . .

An Englishman a Scotish man and a man who visualised architecture go into a pub . . .

No he was right I could find no way to make it into a joke.

I wanted to give you all a glimpse into the stag night, last weekend. I was going to have some photos printed and put on each table. However on closer examination this seemed like a bad idea so instead Ill describe the scene. We were on Baker Street one of London's busiest thorough fairs with a stag who looked like a cross between Borat in his mankini and puff daddy with a big purple hat and a lot of blinging jewlery.

Its easy to see what Dominick sees in Katya. Dominick you are very lucky. You will leave here having gained a wife that is warm, loving and caring. A wife who is funny, and who radiates beauty where ever she goes. [pause]

[face Katya]

And Katya

[pause]
how lucky you are as well

[pause]
you leave today having gained a .

[pause]
Gorgeous dress and a lovely bouquet of flowers.

[pause]

I believe that is usual for me to give you two some advice on marriage, not being married I went looking for some happily married couples . . . – Im afraid I didn't find any,

So asked a married friend instead and he said “the best way to remember your anniversary is to forget it just once” Dom that is truly good advice one of my friends even had the date engraved on his wedding ring.

Its normal for a best man speech to bring up all the grooms past bad behaviour, however I have been involved in quite a number of this vodka fueled nights. Bearing this in mind, and the fact that he will be my best man next year I think ill keep them where they belong, in the past. . .

So I wont tell you about the glove puppet fascination when he was a child, when he and his friends tried to sail an inflatable sofa down the canal in Leicester, the time he blew up a hire car, when he hung his own art work in a gallery in Australia, the the time he lost a fight with a skip, when I shoot him with an arrow, or most importantly of all what he did to his boss'es sofa. . . . . shhhhh it's a secret

Katya there are a few things you should know about Domick.

One. . Rumour has it that Dominick is a 5 times a night man . . . . he always did have a weak bladder.

Two he is a terrible driver he failed his test 3 times . . .and the rspca have taken his nodding dog into protective custody, although once had a compliment left on his widscreen, it said “parking fine”

And Three he is obviously crazy in love with you.

To be serious for a second I have to say that through all the ups and downs Dom has been the only brother I have [cough] erm I mean the best brother I could ask for . . . and Im sure that he will make a fantastic husband for you Katya and a wonderful dad to my future nieces and nephews.

Id like to end by teaching you a little Russian. We are going to learn to say

za jenih ee neevesta

talk about the blind leading the blind . . . . . that is “to the bride and groom” ok well go through that a bit slower. So please raise your glasses and repeat after me

za jenih
–

ee neevesta
–

TO THE NEW MR AND MRS CLIFT
Dominick and Katya
–