Speech by Dave Walker

Speech Type: Best man
Speech Creator: Dave Walker
Speech Date: 15/06/2012 15:13:50

Ladies and Gentlemen good afternoon For those of you that don't know me, my name's Dave. I'm one half of the best men and more commonly referred to as the better half of the best men. Myself and Andy have been asked to do a speech here today so we are going to do a ‘double act’. I've no idea how it's going to work and although we live in London together, at no time have we either rehearsed or attempted this, so in all honesty, anything could be just about to happen.

I enjoy public speaking, and never normally do nerves get the better of me, but today for whatever reason the nerves are kicking in. To be perfectly honest with you all it's not the first time today I've had to get up from a warm seat with a piece of paper in my hand. 

The only other time I've been as nervous as this recently was when I was waiting for Stuart to get a round in on his stag weekend.

Firstly, I would like to congratulate the new Mr and Mrs Mines on a fabulous day. I'm sure you will all agree it's been fantastic so far and a day to remember.  Hopefully our speech will be remembered for the right reasons today. I always assumed when this wedding and the location was announced it would be a great indication of really how far people would travel for the sake of a free meal and glass of bubbly, and the amount of people here today just cement the theory. 

Andy and I have been given guidelines today about what can and can't go into this speech.  Ironically most of this guidance has been given by Stuart instead of Kelly. We were given guidance that there will be a mixture of ages in the audience and that the speech should suit the audience. To that end a lot of the speech has been adapted and any sexual innuendo has been removed as I promised Stuart and Kelly that if there was anything of that nature in the speech, including anything of huge length, I would whip it out immediately.

It's an honour to be asked to do this today; I think Andy and I have been picked as Stuart views us as role models and good representatives of society. I think it would be fair to say that Stuart obviously has an ambition to be like Andy or myself. In fact only this morning when Andy and I were getting changed did we notice that Stuart had gone to the extraordinary lengths of dressing the same as us today.

I have a traditional speech to do today, which contains the usual thanks and stories about the groom, but also Stuart has asked me to comment on his good side, his qualities and his obvious good looks, which is contained on this piece of paper.

I'm always conscious of the time I talk during speeches, as many of my friends have mocked me for the time I talk on occasions. I researched the matter on the internet and the general response was that it should reflect the time it takes for the groom to make love, so on that note I have already been stood up far too long. Thank you for coming; you have been a wonderful audience. (Sit down)

I was given advice on controlling my nerves today, and a wise man said to me: “It will put you at ease if you imagine your audience naked”.  I have been doing that from the start and must admit it has helped, all I would say though is that Nathan, you really need to get some cream for that.

I'm limited as to what I'm allowed to say about Stuart during my speech, and I assure you that is not due to lack of incidents, but more about the censorship that has been placed on my speech. I have many stories, as do many here, but these will be disclosed upon the offer of a drink later on at the bar.

He's a down to earth guy whi is fully aware of everything going on around him.  An example of this is night one of the stag weekend. Whilst playing Texas Hold ‘Em poker, in true best man style I dealt him a hand of 4 Aces. The odds of this happening ladies and gentleman are 1 in 41,000, but true to form Stuart did not bat an eyelid and had no suspicions whatsoever.

Stuart is very competitive, and doesn't like to lose. Any required method to win will be used by Stuart, as far down to a Scrabble app on the phone. Everybody playing Stuart realised very quickly realised he had either spent his nights digesting the Oxford Dictionary or had located a cheat application for this game. There were words that allegedly came out of the brain of Stuart that people had ever heard of, let alone be able to spell.

Another example of Stuart's competitive nature could be demonstrated at my Stag weekend.  We went paintballing in Exeter.  Everybody got kitted up and were content with the allocated paintballs included in the cost of the paintballing.  All but one person that is, the groom you see before you today. Whilst everybody was waiting for the scenario to start the wind kicked up and created a dust cloud. Then emerging from the dust cloud was a wide shadow of an individual, and upon the dust setting we saw it was Stuart, looking like a man ready for war.  This man had more paint in his possession than B & Q and better pyrotechnics than those used for the winners of this year's Six Nations, though I forget who the winner was this year.

During the paintball scenario, it was easy to locate Stuart.  Whilst others were happy firing their allocated paint, the rapid fire matching that of a general purpose machine gun mixed with the occasional shout of ‘grenade’ or ‘smoke’ identified his location.      

The final mention has to be to the final day of the stag party.  I arranged for Stuart to go onto the pitch at half time to have a go at a drop goal. Normally I'm sure that Stuart would have embraced the fact that I had created the opportunity for him to make a prat of himself in front of 10,000 people. On this particular day however, Stuart was a slight shade of green and resembled a walking corpse due to the night before. When his name was called, he didn't look amused, even more so that he was called out with Olympiad Liam Tancock, in all honesty there couldn't have been a more distinctive example of the opposites of health and well being to that material time.

Stuart took to the field and was given the ball. He took the moment by both horns and attempted his drop goal. I am still receiving calls and twitter messages from rugby professionals asking if Stuart can give them a coaching lesson in how to get a rugby ball such  short distance and so high from a standing position..

The only other incident from the stag weekend would be in reference to the “broken ankle” in the pub, which I'm sure people present will remember. I won't embarrass the poor lad now, but it can be discussed later…                    

On to the more traditional matters, I'm sure you will all agree the bride looks beautiful today. 

I have known Kelly for some years now but to be honest, I'm still not 100% sure what she says and must admit that on occasions I just nod. There we go, controversial, but there was no way either of these two could have expected me to get through this speech without mentioning the fact that Kelly is from a foreign land, Wales.

I will end with a quick one liner, “What do you call a Welshman holding a bottle of champagne after the Rugby world Cup? A waiter”