Speech by Craig

Speech Type: Best man
Speech Creator: Craig
Speech Date: 31/07/2016 00:13:52

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. May I first of all introduce myself to those of you who don't know me, or who haven't bought me a drink yet, my name is Craig, and I'm on JD and Coke ?

I'm absolutely honoured to be standing here today, and humbled that Rich has asked me to be his best man. I know there are 3 reasons Rich has asked me to be best man. First of all, he knew I could organise a decent night out for the stag do, also, he knew the speech would be one to remember, and finally, I think he just wanted to look taller in the photos.

I've never been a best man before, so I started where most people go when they're stumped, and went online. I'd only been on a few minutes, and I found a brilliant site, full of some seriously good stuff, there were videos, hints and tips, it was great. After about an hour though, I heard my wife pulled onto the driveway, so I deleted the browsing history, and started looking for best man speech ideas.

Obviously, there are certain duties as best man I have to do.  I'd like to thank rich on behalf of myself and the bridesmaids for the kind words, and honestly feel touched by them. I'd like to thank the bridesmaids for not only doing a great job in the church earlier today, but also for helping Grace this morning and getting her ready, calming her nerves, and I'm sure she'll be thankful of them today every time she needs the loo. It goes without saying, they all look fantastic, but obviously, not as much as Grace. Let's face it, it's her wedding day, she planned it like that. Kind of a “you can look nice but not as nice as me” kind of deal. No doubt everyone here today thought the same 2 things as Grace walked in the church- firstly how beautiful she looked, and secondly, that Rich is MASSIVELY punching above his weight. I'd also like to thank Adam, Will and Liam the ushers, where are you lads? I'd like to thank them for the absolutely bang up job they did of telling people where to sit in the church. That was worth the suit hire fee on its own, nice one lads.

Now, I do have some messages from people who couldn't attend but wanted to send their wishes To Rich, all the best on your wedding day, don't be a stranger! From Destiny, Sahara, and all the girls at the fantasy lounge

This one's from all the lads at the Rugby club, “Rich was useless in every position. All the best to his new Wife”.

“To Rich, all the best! Friday's just won't be the same without you!” – That's from Bruce, Julian and all the other lads at British Beef men's Saunas.

Now, everyone here knows Rich in a different capacity, so not everyone will know things about him that others know. Some know him from work, some from Uni, some through Grace, and some through family. So, what I'm going to do now is share with you some little known facts about Richard.

1. You may have noticed Rich mentioned the time we saw the Courteeners. He tells everyone this was the first concert he went to. It was at the MEN in Manchester on a lads’ weekend. Brilliant gig from an amazing live band, a top night out afterwards in a cool club, absolutely fantastic. This in actual fact, was his 2nd gig. His first – Rhidian from X Factor. If you can't remember exactly who that is, and let's be honest, who could blame you, it was the Welsh blonde opera singer. Rock and Roll.  2. Rich went through a phase where his favourite drink was an Archers and orange juice. This only came to an end when as his friends, we quite rightly refused to order him one. Saying “2 Guinness, a pint of Stella, a double JD and Coke and an Archers and Orange please mate” in a rough pub when it's a bunch of lads just wasn't on. If we did have to get him one, we always made sure it had a little cocktail umbrella so the old boys at the bar drinking a pint of mild were all sure to give him a dodgy look. 3. I've got to thank Grace for sharing this one. Rich once re-wrote the song “IT girl” as a poem for grace, calling it Stoke girl. I'm not going to read it all out, but I'll give you the highlights. “Down Selly oak, in the soak, trying to find you/tell them other guys they can lose your number because I've found the girl of my dreams/ you can be my Stoke girl/ baby this is it girl/better than a 2:1, that's what you mean to me”. Now, even though it was Grace who told me about this, what she doesn't actually know, is the reason behind it. Basically, the day before Valentine's Day, Rich realised her forgotten to get Grace a card, so Rich being the penny pincher he is, decided to screen shot and print out a moon pig card. However, even Rich realised this moon pig knock off looked kind of bad, so heard It Girl on the radio, and just decided to change the words. As you can see from his efforts though, it's pretty obvious it's not English he teaches.  4. Final fact about Rich – his only other serious girlfriend very helpfully, for the purposes of my speech anyway, finished with him around this time of year. His timehop recently showed his Facebook status from the break up. Timehop, if you're not aware of it, is an app that shows what your Facebook updates were on that day however many years ago. Luckily for us, Rich decided to go on Facebook after getting the elbow. I'm not one to kick a bloke while he's down, but it's been 7 years now, so I'll share the status updates from that day with you now. “This shouldn't be happening”. “The summer is ruined”, and my favourite, “if there's one thing I know for sure, I'm always going to be there for you, I'll be waiting X”. She probably thought she'd split up with Rod Stewart.

The main aim of the best man's speech is of course pretty much telling stories about the groom from drunken nights out, embarrassing him in front of all his family and friends. Anyone who actually knows Rich, knows that he is more than capable of doing that on his own, but I'll follow tradition and give it a go anyway. This is where I hit a bit of a problem though, as I have to be aware of the audience….so Rich has been telling me almost daily for 18 months. Not only are Rich's new in-law's present, but also his grandparents, and also my 3 year old. That rules out pretty much the vast majority. I know everyone always says that, but I genuinely mean there are dozens I can't say. One in particular, but in Rich's defence, I honestly thought it was a woman as well. Eventually however, I did remember one I can share with you.

We were in Wolverhampton one night, in a club called blast off. Now back in the day, we didn't so much have a seduction technique, more “eye contact then close dancing when Call on Me by Eric Prydz came on”, but Rich was always different. As Dave and Lorraine will be pleased to hear, Rich always tried to be a complete gentleman. His tried- very tried- and tested method was to approach a girl, say to them, “I've noticed you from across the dance floor, I think you're very attractive, could I please buy you a drink?” Bearing in mind though.… this….was Wolverhampton, so usually he'd buy them a Bacardi breezer, and then they'd go and dance with a lad in a striped Henri Lloyd sweatshirt called Daz, so it never actually worked. One night however, Rich spotted a young girl, and made his way over. By the time he got there though, she's moved. And believe me when I say for the next 3 hours we weren't stood in the same place for more than 2 minutes before rich moved us again looking for this girl. Eventually, at about 1am, he conceded defeat, and we went outside for a fag, and Rich, who's never smoked, tagged along. Anyone who's ever been on a night out with Rich knows that he can't handle his drink. A sniff of the barmaids apron and he's hammered, so by this time, he was more than merry. Then who do we see coming out of another door, but the girl in question. Rich then decides to make a last gasp romantic gesture and go over. In his head it no doubt was like Colin firth as Mr Darcy emerging from the lake in pride and prejudice. In reality though, it was much different. He starts to walk toward the taxi, and thinks it'll look cooler, more dangerous, if he's got a cigarette, so he grabs one out of my mouth. He walks over, and that's when the rest of us realised, this wasn't a taxi…it was the girl's mother, fetching her daughter from up town. As she shuts the door, Rich blocks it, she looks up, and sees Rich, an embassy number one hanging from his mouth, squinting from the smoke going in his eye, a can of red stripe in one hand, his phone in the other, mumbling what sounds like the lyrics to “I bet you look good on the dance floor”, swaying on the spot. Shockingly, he didn't get her number.

I still remember when Rich told me he'd met Grace. He said he'd met her up town, and was instantly smitten with her, and all he went on about for days was how they'd been texting and finally arranged to meet at an expensive restaurant in Birmingham. Then, the nerves kicked in when he realised that on that night, they were both drunk, to be honest, I'm assuming grace was the more drunk out of the 2, and he couldn't really remember too much about her, and he could only gather so much from stalking her profile on Facebook, and even then he'd accidentally liked a photo from 2 years before, so he'd deactivated his profile for a few days just to be safe. As luck would have it, my wife and I were in Birmingham than night in a different restaurant, so Rich came up with a plan. If he got there, and it was all going pear shaped, or he wanted to leave, he'd give me a ring, I'd ring him back, he'd pretend there was an emergency at work and I would pick him up. And now, here we are all these years later, on their wedding day. All I can say is it's lucky my phone was on silent and I didn't see the 36 missed calls, 9 texts and 15 voicemails from Rich until the next morning.

In all seriousness now though, I'd like to thank Rich and Grace for including all of us here on their special day. Especially Ed, who didn't stop the fact he was only invited in the night stop him from being here now. To be honest we should all be saying that, he has been brutal with the guest list. Rich is a good friend, who I've had some great times with over the last 10 years, and he's found a true soul mate in Grace. I have absolutely no doubt he'll be just as good a husband, and one day as good a father. Rich, Grace, if you could both just look at each other for a moment, don't worry, I'm not doing the “last time you've got the upper hand” gag. I'd like to say that everyone here is so happy that you have found each other, and that you have taken the next step on a long and wonderful life together. And as you sit here, gazing into each other's eyes, never forget that statistically, you are looking at the person most likely to murder you.

Ladies and gentlemen, it has truly been an honour delivering this speech to you, so please, be upstanding, and raise your glasses for the new Mr and Mrs ….hold on, Rich hasn't got a drink….I'm not surprised after how many toasts were in his speech….can we get him one.… (Waiter brings out an archers and orange with a cocktail umbrella in it)….ah, there we go……ladies and gentlemen, the new Mr and Mrs!