Speech by Mark Claridge

Speech Type: Best man
Speech Creator: Mark Claridge
Speech Date: May2006
Good afternoon, as you have probably worked out by now I am the best man, Matt. I am stood up here to say a few thank you's, make a toast, sing the groom's praises and tell you all about his good points. The first two things are fine, however I can't sing and I definitely won't lie.…

Firstly Tom, thank you for giving me this honour of being your best man, I really could not ask for a better friend. However, I would ask if you and Katherine could partake in my speech. Katherine can you please put your left hand on the table. Tom can you please place your hand on top of Katherine's . . . Thank you

Ladies and Gents, I am sure you will agree that the wedding has turned out to be a fabulous event, but for every silver lining there is a cloud, that is .. that you have to listen to me for a few minutes!

I do have a reputation for rabbiting on, so I will try and keep this as brief as possible.

JUST REMEMBER THE MORE YOU LAUGH THE SOONER ITS OVER

Let me first say that the bridesmaid, “Katherine's sister” looks absolutely smashing today, and only rightly outshone by her sister and our bride, Katherine.

I'm sure you'll agree with me gentlemen, today is a sad day for single men, as another beautiful and intelligent woman leaves the available list. And ladies, I'm sure you'll agree that today has passed by without much of a ripple. Katherine, I hope that you remember your wedding with fondness as unfortunately there are few other fond memories in your future with Tom. To your parents all I can say is at least you have another daughter and hopefully she will have better luck with her choice of husband.

I would like to thank and congratulate Tom on his speech, surprisingly it was most enjoyable. It has now obviously raised the expectations of my speech to a level that I cannot possibly hope to fulfil, so thanks for that too.…

Again I thank you Tom for asking me to be your Best man; I must say it isn't the first time that we have broached the subject. Unfortunately his high school sweetheart was often heard to comment that there would be no chance of their relationship continuing if I were to be his best man. So thank you to Katherine too for letting me have this chance.

I have never had the honour of being best man before, nor needed to write a speech, so I thought the obvious place for research seemed to be the internet. With a multitude of resources at my fingertips I dutifully began searching the web in order to compile it. I looked at hundreds of speeches joined dozens of sites, some of which I am still paying direct debits to now. And all this only to discover that over 95% of them contained the same joke . .

“Being the best man is very similar to making love to the queen, it's a great honour, but no-one wants to do it.”

I apologise but after all this time and money I simply had to use it . . .

I also found many ready-prepared speeches whilst searching the net.… but sadly, NONE of them were about a couple called Tom and Katherine, who lived in Northampton….so it looks like it was down to me after all

To be totally honest it has been a HUGE honour to be asked to take part in Tom's and Katherine's wedding in any way.

Tom and my friendship started back sometime during our Grammar school days, in Boston. I would at this point like to tell some joke about it being an all boys school, however, myself and several other students still carry the mental and physical scars of Tom's days there, so forgive me for omitting that the speech.

At the end of the grammar school Tom embarked on his university career conveniently to the city with more pubs, than anywhere else in the UK, Nottingham. When Tom started at Nottingham, he was only a social drinker, but with the helpful assistance of many of his dorm and house mates, especially Gav and Vaughn, he soon moved up a gear to heavy drinking and finally to alcohol dependence. He is the only person I know who goes to the loo to be sick – and takes a bottle of Vodka with him.

Tom's many drunken nights were at some point bound to lead him to Katherine, a fully qualified nurse. Without her, goodness only knows what gutter we may be pulling him from now.

Thankfully since being with Katherine he never pushes the limits and truthfully believes that two drinks are enough for anyone, well when it his turn to pay for the third anyway.

As you can see I have known Tom for many years and in some ways I would like to think of myself of somewhat of a father figure to him. I watched him drink from a bottle, I watched him stagger around naked, I watched him crawl, I've cleaned up after him and even had to teach him about the birds and the bees … and that was only the stag weekend!

Tom seemed to omit so much about it from his own speech; I feel I should mention it in mine. I can only apologise for mine and tom's appearance today accompanied with our obvious hangovers. However, I am sure you will appreciate that the stag night was only some 6 weeks ago, which left us little time to recover.

Katherine, I can assure you that Tom was on his best behaviour and in fact became somewhat of a ‘lap’ dog whilst in Bournemouth. He even commented on the serious lack of adulterous fun, but did say that it got boring every week, so it was nice to have a break once in a while.

Anyone who knows me will back me up when I say that, I would only subject Tom to an extremely quiet and well mannered trip, a nice meal in a local curry house and home to bed with a glass of hot milk by 9pm. So quite how Tom found himself only wearing a nappy and covered in lipstick on the 3.30am train to Exeter is a mystery to all of us.

And of course the trouble we had getting Tom's brothers out of that strip club was another story entirely.

Many of you have commented to me throughout the day that Tom has seemingly passed through it without any jitters whatsoever. Insisting ‘I'm fine, really’ whenever quizzed.

However, that's probably because none of you saw him at 10 o'clock this morning, lying face down on his bed, wearing no more than his shorts and t-shirt, cuddling his childhood teddy bear, sorry Barbie doll, Whilst his mum rubbed his back, trying to get him to eat a few more cornflakes. . . .

——– Anyway

Seemingly apart from this speech few other duties fell to me today. I was told my duties were to be:

1) Bring a credit card and loads of cash, in case there is anything the Tom may have forgotten to pay for. . . . Well I've been doing this so long anyway it isn't much of an issue.

2) I was told I must ensure that Tom was dressed for the church . . . It took a while, but I did eventually manage to persuade Tom that the Church had a strict no jeans and trainers policy.

3) That I must ensure that Tom reached the church sober, punctual, has his shoelaces tied, his flies done up and uses the toilet before the service,

I choose to ignore the sober part, again sorry Katherine.

4) Ensure the rings were at the church

Talking of which I have been reliably informed that 5 rings represent marriage thoroughly: The engagement ring, the wedding ring, the suffering, the torturing, and the enduring.

5) Finally to give some strong martial advice to the happy couple, this being

– Firstly set the ground rules and establish who is boss – then do everything that she says.

– Don't forget Tom if you buy her flowers, she knows you're guilty and she will remember, to the second, the last time you bought her some and why!

– Finally the five most important words in marriage ‘Yes, you are right dear’.

I think if you keep to those words of advice you will never go far wrong always remember that Married Life Can Be Compared To Football … so, Be Fully Committed Every Week And Make Sure You Score Every Saturday. Make sure you change ends at half time and don't put your tackle in too hard or you might injure yourself.

Katherine however assures Me That Playing Away From Home, Could Result In A Serious Groin Injury, And Is Definitely The Quickest Way Onto The Transfer List.

(I thought it best not to mention anything about diving in the box.)

Katherine I am sure you have heard advice of how to keep a successful marriage, you need:

A man who will treat you right and always stand by your side

A man who will shower you with gifts and compliments

A man who will comfort you in times of trouble.

A man who will please you and grant your every request.

and most importantly

Ensure that each man does not know the other ones names.

But really Tom you are a VERY lucky man, Katherine really does deserve a great husband. Thank Christ she married you before she had time to find one.

Have you still got your hands together? . . . Good!

I would like to read out a few words from people who couldn't be here today:

Dear Katherine, Good luck on your wedding day, and I hope you spend many happy years together. But I will always wonder what might have happened between us had things worked out differently. Love Robbie Williams

Dear Katherine, You forgot your thong and magic wand, we'll look after them for you, from the boys at the Havana Spice Club

Dear Tom, You forgot your thong and magic wand, we'll look after them for you, from the boys at the Havana Spice Club

Dear Katherine, We've recently had Tom on trial here, we tried him in every position and he was useless. We hope you have more luck. From the boys on the cricket team.

Dear Katherine, my sincere condolences. Can you see why I didn't want matt to be best man now? Tom's high school sweetheart.

There are more but I shan't go on . . .

————

I have attended and even hosted many weddings through the past few years, so I have had a better opportunity than most to pick up lines to compile this best man's speech, I can only apologise for not making a better job of it. However, with this experience, Tom and Katherine asked me to help with a bit of an issue today. To be honest . . . they just couldn't decide who to seat where. So as best man, I offered to step in and try to work something out. What we finally decided was to use the wedding present list, and PUT those who bought the biggest items nearest the front, and work it back from there. So if you can hear me at the back there, thank you to Tony and Sue for the oven glove.

The final, and most important task, of best man is knowing when enough is enough and I think that that time has arrived, especially as I look down at my girlfriend and see her with her head in her hands, wondering “what am I doing here?”.

Tom, Katherine . . . Your hands still together . . . yes?

Now in case any of you are wondering why I have asked Tom to place his hand on top of Katherine's, I will tell you now.

It has been my greatest pleasure today to give you Tom, the last five minutes that you will ever have with the upper hand in your marriage.

Well I again apologise for taking your time and I am sure you are ready for yet more alcohol, by the way thank you Steven, Tom's dad for such an abundant supply. I will do my best to sample much more later.

Thank you all for coming today to celebrate Tom and Katherine's wedding. Thank you for enduring my speech. I truthfully believe that it's a wonderful honour to stand before a room full of interested, attentive people and talk in tribute of a man of high achievement, flawless integrity, piercing intellect and impeccable wit – and if I ever get that opportunity, I'll be sure to make the most of it.

Seriously though everyone please charge your glasses . . .

I would like to wish the happy couple all the best for the future, although I'm sure they won't need it. And as one of my last thoughts on this wonderful day, I'd just like to say,

Marriage is not about finding someone you can live with, it's about finding someone you can't live without.

Ladies and gents, boys and girls please raise your glasses to Katherine and Tom . . . The Bride and Groom