Speech by Andrew Myles

Speech Type: Best man
Speech Creator: Andrew Myles
Speech Date: Jul2005
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and for people who don't already know me I'm Andrew, Stuart's younger brother, and having just looked out and seen how many people are out there, his rather reluctant best man today.

First of all, on behalf of the bridesmaids I'd like to thank Stuart for his very kind words, and I have to say they look absolutely wonderful and have done an excellent job today. Gill, can I just take this opportunity to tell you how radiant and beautiful you look today, and also wish you the very best of luck, a life sentence with Stu, your gonna need it. Joking aside you look stunning and welcome to the family Mrs Myles.

Many months ago when Stu first approached me and asked me to be best man, I was both honoured and touched, and said yes immediately. But then a few months passed and I started feeling myself getting more apprehensive when I actually had to start doing things some people have said that being asked to be best man is like being asked to make love to the Queen, sure it's a great honour but nobody really wants to do it, well, if I'm honest, the Queen was busy today so here I am instead. To say I've had an easy road here today would be an understatement. I started to arrange the Stag do and after a sit down and surf on the net with Stu we finalised the plans and I started getting things in place, no problems until the Monday before the stag do when there was a mix up with the bus company, their fault not mine, and I had to arrange another company. Then I phoned up and cancelled the first company. But when I did this I was received by a torrent of abuse and obscenities, then I realised I had phoned stu's number accidentally and he'd just finished night shift sorry about that stu. So I phoned up the company to cancel and the very nice lady there threatened me with legal action. Well armed with the information that the whole wedding was covered by wedding insurance I told the lady I would see her in court, they never took things further which was lucky because apparently stu forgot to send the insurance form away PHEW. Apart from that everything else went well on the day no problems at the horse racing, well except for the two people who lost 㾶00 each on one race on a sure fired tip that came second last, but I'm sworn by stag day rules not to let there wives know so need to worry Stu and Brian, your secrets safe. After the racing we headed to the Grass market for a beverage or two and Stu was dressed up in Scooby Doo costume. Everything was fine at the Grass market except for Scooby holding us all up by having to leave his scent on every lamppost and every bollard he passed. I think Scobby Stu got carried away with the role, when he started showing his affection to bouncer's legs, and no that's not the golden lab from neighbours. The Casino went well although somewhat a little hazy and big Tam's episode seemed to amuse us all.

Next task on my best man agenda was the speech, I thought how hard can this be, if only I knew then what I know now. Before I go any further this is a true story! I'd looked on the internet and read a couple of books but my actual first attempt to commit pen to paper was a flaming disaster, not only did I almost wreck my chances to have a family, I almost burnt my house down. Picture the scene, a nice sunny Sunday afternoon, my back garden with a deck chair, printouts from the internet and a cup of very hot coffee. I went and sat down and started jotting some ideas down, an intro, some jokes I thought were good and decided to have a drink of coffee, the cup had almost touched my lips when all of a suddenproduce mug handle from sporran I was left with just the handle in my hand. It took what seemed like a millisecond for the coffee to go the natural path of right between my legsouch. So I jumped up ran into my Kitchen and started ripping clothes off. After splashing cold water on my sensitive bits I got changed into dry clothes and went back out to the back garden to survey the scene, coffee soaked sheets of paper lying all over the place. So I gathered them all up and came up with the what seemed genius idea of drying all the sheets in the microwave, the first 30 seconds at full power worked well with all the sheets drying nicely, sure they were warm but they were definitely dryer than they were before. So I decided on another 30 seconds at full power. It had only been going for about 10 seconds when I got the unmistakable smell of burning paper so I dived for the microwave and opened it to find that the centre of my sheets had turned brown and started embering and when I lifted the sheets out of the micro they literally burst into flames in my hand, fortunately I managed to get the sheets flung out into the back garden where they all burnt completely. The second attempt seems to be going ok so far but just incase place small fire extinguisher on table. So as a word of advice to any future best men out there BE VERY CAREFUL, it's not as easy as it seems.

My official duties today were making sure the groom arrived, on timejust managed it, you know what he's like, soberrelatively, and smartwell if god couldn't do it first time round then what chance did I have, so two out of three aint bad I suppose.

And now I have the opportunity and audience to speak just a bit, about our infamous Groom Stu.

I thought that I would look back through history and see if anything monumental had occurred on Stuarts birthday, nothing really spectacular except for one thing that popped up straight away. Gill, don't worry I think it's just a coincidence though. Stu was born in Falkirk royal infirmary on the 10th of August 1977 weighing in at 6lb 13oz after being slightly premature, no change there then. On the very day and year Stu was born, 24-year-old postal employee David Berkowitz is arrested and charged with being the &quotSon of Sam,&quot the serial killer who terrorized New York City for more than a year, killing six young people and wounding seven others with a .44-caliber revolver.

What can I say about Stu, as a youngster, I can always remember him being hyper and running around like daftienow I'm not wanting anyone coming out the audience and restraining him. Something to do with e numbers or something, IRN BRU was a banned substance in our house, funnily enough, right up till the point Stu left. He also dropped a screw in his ear once and had to go to casualty to get it removed, the only problem is the doctor retrieved two, suppose that could explain a few things though.

Some telegrams/cards.

Dear Stu and Gill,
Congratulations, we have everything in place for your arrival, and look forward to your two week stay with us.

The staff at the “Newly weds B&ampB” Skegness.

Stu I don't only see you as a big brother but also as a best friend and although I have this opportunity to ridicule and humiliate you today, I think I'm just going to leave it up to Gill from now on in, and with a life time of practise I'm sure She'll get really good at it.. Stu, I'm going to leave you with two pieces of advice that two of the older gentlemen in the audience have been so kind to share with me today, they shall remain nameless thoughGesture to Dad and Brian. Think I'm getting the hang of that now.

1The best way to remember an anniversary or birthday is to forget one.
2Always remember the three crucial words, “Your right Gill.”

And with that, I would like to propose a toast to the happy couple, so please raise your glasses and join me in a toast to Stuart and Gill.