Speech by Jeremy Savell

Speech Type: Best man
Speech Creator: Jeremy Savell
Speech Date: 2002 nov
Ladies and Gentlemen, a wise man once said that a best man's speech should only be as long as it takes for the groom to make love. So thankyou, and goodnight
(sits down to huge laughter)
I hope you are all enjoying yourselves. I was, until I had to stand up in front of you all. Seriously, weddings are a traditional occasion, with many protocols and guidelines to observe, and one of them is that the best man makes a bad joke about the groom's sexual prowess. I can't promise that'll be the last of them either! Basically I'm crapping myself standing up here in front of you all, so my in-built defence mechanism is to spread the discomfort amongst as many people sitting up at this table as possible.
I don't know if you all know this, but there was a four-month delay before Cameron asked me to be his best man. At the engagement party he chose Adrian, Brad, James and myself to be his groomsmen, but didn't pick one of us for the highest honour. We all thought this was highly odd, but then Cameron always did move in mysterious ways. I mean, have you ever seen him try to dance? It was quite an honour about a year ago when he finally picked me to be his best man, but I immediately began dreading the moment when I had to give this speech.
I've asked many people for advice on how this speech should go, and received plenty of good advice. For instance, someone said a good trick to help you relax is to imagine the audience is sitting in front of you naked. Now, with the greatest of respect to you guys, I think that particular tip might be more use at a Miss World convention than a wedding.
The next piece of advice someone gave me was to imagine that the groom is dressed up in a pink tutu, wearing nothing else but a T-shirt that says “Grope Me” on the back. How anyone came up with that idea I'm not sure, but I reckon there's about 2,000 people who saw Cameron dressed like that on his stag do last weekend, who'll all agree it's not a pretty sight!
So what have I done to be nominated Cameron's best man on the most important day of his life? Not a lot really. I was scanning my memory banks for all the notable incidents involving the two of us, and came to the conclusion that I've been more of a hindrance than anything else over the years.
I first met Cameron when he was a fresh-faced turd at Palmy Boys High in 1989, and he sat behind me in technical drawing. We pretty much hit if off straight away and have been best mates ever since. Over the years I've given him plenty of stick for being built like a matchstick, living in Feilding and supporting the Broncos, but here we are 13 years later.
The two of wasted nearly 10 years of our lives as we went through school and then Massey together, although the latter wasn't too bad. If I recall correctly we majored in Finance and Economics, although the more accurate terminology would be that we majored in Golf and Video Games. We even managed to travel a fair bit, with numerous trips around both the North and South Islands. From North Cape to the Bluff, we've been there, done that. Speedway, sightseeing, rallies, luge, tramping, golf, tennis, boating, drinking, laughing, joking, beach buggies, pool, karting, cricket. I could go on.
There was even one famous hop across the ditch. Cameron, Adrian and I drove from Sydney to Bathurst, and then on to Brisbane, where Cameron saw his beloved Broncos beat the awesome Parramatta Eels. It's embarrassing to say though that we spent two days at the Gold Coast and didn't even see the famous beach. Instead we sat in an arcade and played video games nearly the whole time. How sweet and innocent we were back then.
Anyway, the Massey years came to an end and Cameron shifted down to Wellington, to enter paid employment as a government worker. Just a few months later he shacked up with this Katherine bird, and here we are today. In fact, things have followed a pretty linear path. They started going out, and got engaged 18 months later. Here we are another 18 months later, at the wedding. So I guess you don't have to be too much of a rocket scientist to imagine that it's only about 18 months until a junior Wheeler appears on the scene. Hopefully Cameron looks after his wife and family better than he looks after his car, which is the world's most unloved Opel Vectra.
On Thursday night we had a bit of a get together with the bridal party, as some of us had never met. Kath's bridesmaids are a very talented bunch, who have been assembled from all corners of the globe. I'm sure you'll agree that they look stunning today too. Anyway, in amongst all the talk about jobs, travel, hair, lipstick and life in general, it's always good to know where people stand politically and morally. So in amongst other things I asked my counterpart Clare about her stance on pre-marital sex. She said it was fine, as long as it didn't hold up the ceremony.…
It's an immense honour to be named best man for a fine upstanding gentleman like Cameron, and I'm sure all of you agree that the bride and groom make quite a good match. Katherine is exactly the kind of woman Cameron needed, as he isn't the most organised bloke on the planet. Meanwhile, Katherine knew her search for true love was over the moment she got into Cameron into his bedroom, and she saw the size of his enormous, bulging……..wallet.
And to stop Katherine from punching me after that last comment, which was of course meant in jest, I'm going to get the bride and groom to perform a little exercise. Kath, could you place you hand on the table in front of you. Right, now Cameron place your hand on top. Now Kath you put your other hand on top of Cameron's. And Cameron, place your other hand on top of Kath's. Very good, and now, can I say in all sincerity to you Cameron, that this is the very last time in your marriage that you'll have the upper hand!
Okay, we're getting close to wrapping things up here, so we have a few emails from people who unfortunately couldn't be with us today.
So to finish can I say best of luck to you both, it's been an honour to be your best man, and I look forward to speaking at your golden wedding celebrations in 2052.