Speech by Mark Harvey

Speech Type: Best man
Speech Creator: Mark Harvey
Speech Date: May2007
Good afternoon ladies &amp gentlemen.

Firstly, on behalf of the bridesmaids, I would like to thank Bob for his kind words and for the lovely presents, I guess my main present must be parked outside!

I think the bridesmaids have done a wonderful job today and they all look fantastic, outshone only by Laura herself, I think you would all agree she looks stunning… Bob just looks stunned!

I would like to propose a toast: Ladies and Gentleman, “The Bridesmaids”.

Secondly, our thanks of course must go to the parents of the bride, Pauline and Brian, for the wonderful hospitality we have received today. It's been a wonderful day, in a spectacular venue that I'm sure we'll all remember for years to come.

Ladies and Gentlemen: “Pauline and Brian”

My son Luke, the pageboy and the ushers have all done a sterling job today.

Ladies and Gentlemen: “The Boys”.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank those who have travelled long distances to be here today. There are people here from all over the globe. I'm always amazed how far some people will travel for a free meal!

I think an introduction is worthwhile. For those of you who do not know me my real name is Whatwouldyouliketodrink. I hope many of you will come and say hello to me at the bar later, but I do insist you use my full name.

I am sure you will agree that this has turned out to be a brilliant wedding celebration so far but unfortunately every silver lining has a cloud, so here I am.

First I have a couple of disclaimers.

Disclaimer number one – I apologise in advance if anyone is offended by my speech – considering Bob asked all and sundry to be his Bestman. So I was a little perplexed when he finally asked me with the opening words, “I know I'm scraping the barrel, but…”

Disclaimer number two – Bob and Laura have stated that should you injure yourselves in any way when climbing on the tables and chairs at the end of my speech to give me a standing ovation, they hold themselves in no way responsible for your actions!

Today is a sad day for single men as another beauty leaves the available list.
Ladies, I'm sure you'll all agree that today is passing by without much of a ripple.

At this point I would like to ask both Bob and Laura to take part in my speech. Laura, will
you please place your left/right hand on the table. Bob will you please place your left/right
hand on top of Laura's…

I consider it a great honour to have been asked to be Bob's Best man, but it is possibly the most terrifying ordeal you can inflict on anyone. I can assure you that this is not the first time today I have risen from a warm seat with a piece of paper in my hand!

Now I think one of the topics I'm meant to make reference to is the drunken debauchery that took place on the Stag Do but I would be lying if I tried to do so. This is clearly good news for Bob, but rather unfortunate for me as I had my hopes pinned on this event to give me something to talk about today.

Now as I mentioned, it is a great honour to do this but writing a speech is an ordeal isn't it?

According to tradition I am supposed to SING THE GROOM'S PRAISES and tell you all about his MANY good points. Well, I'm very sorry but I CAN'T SING, and I WON'T LIE.

Working in relation to IT it seemed obvious that I should start by looking for some ideas on the web, so with resources at my fingertips I dutifully began Googling. After a couple of hours searching I found some REALLY good stuff… but then I remembered I was supposed to be looking for speech tips!!!

In the run up to today, Bob and Laura had a bit of an issue with the seating plan.
So as the best man I stepped in to offer a solution. What we decided was to use the wedding presents as a guide. Those who spent the most we sat at the front and worked it back from there. So if you can hear me at the back, thank you to xxxxxx and xxxxxx for the oven gloves.

One of my tasks was to ensure the groom made it to the church fit and proper, on time and sober. As you can see this was achieved. To make sure this was the case, I stayed at his house last night and I can assure you he was in bed early and he slept like a baby – that is, he wet his bed twice and woke every hour crying for his mummy.

For those of you who don't know Bob so well I will try to give you a little overview of what he's about. For those of you who DO know him well – you have my sympathy.

Bob was born at a very early age, about the size of a baby on the 30th March 1982 at Heatherwood Hospital, Ascot.

I tried to link Bob's birth date to some major world event, but it seems that nothing else happened that day… although the hospital staff still refers to that day as “Ugly TUESDAY”. in fact he was the only baby in Bracknell with shutters on his pram!

I did ask his mum and dad if they had any cute photos of Bob to show everyone here today. There was this one of him lying naked on a sheepskin rug, in front of the fire, eating a chocolate biscuit and dribbling. I was going to bring it to show you all, but I thought it might have been too embarrassing, as he was 21 years old at the time!!

Bob was chatting up girls almost as soon as he could talk and possessed a great imagination.

He started talking to Natalie, his next door neighbour through knot holes in the garden fence from when he was really small. He was renowned to pass all sorts of objects through those holes!

At the age of 2 he survived strangulation by his sister one night on holiday in Devon. Vic was sleepwalking, and was strangling him saying that she needed a J for her polo word! Nobody knows what she meant but I now have a knack of sleeping with one eye open. The doctors said the lack of blood to his brain would not have impaired him in any way but we are still seeking a second opinion.

During his second year of his life his parents bought a little rag doll for one of his cousins for Christmas. Bob grabbed her, called her Dolly and spent the rest of the day cuddling and playing with it and refused to give it back. To avoid breaking his heart they had to let him keep her and buy another one. He also used to like playing with Vic's doll Carol who had a red furry coat that he used to spend lots of time taking off!

At the age 3 he developed a healthy taste for women's jewellery. He would not be seen without his beautiful blue beaded necklace around his neck which was from a Christmas cracker one year – they should have read the signs back then!

His love of cars started from a young age where he spent hours setting up traffic jams with his abundance of matchbox cars all over the living room floor leaving them much to his mum and dad's annoyance.

He also used to spend hours playing with an old steering of his Dad's and pretended to be repairing it.

He had an obsession with his Dad's Cortina, just like the one in Life on Mars, which he called Goldie despite it actually being brown! and used to love going out in it. Dad used to take him out in the car sometimes if he wouldn't go to sleep. He never got over the night Goldie went off to be scrapped. None of their other cars were ever quite the same.

Bob has always been a confident little darling where his cheekiness was simply part of the territory.

Once he was doing something really naughty and there was an idle threat of a smack if he didn't do as he was told. Bob just stood there and said &quotWell smack me then!&quot Nobody couldn't quite keep a straight face then and nothing has changed since!

Having two older siblings at school during the day he created imaginary friends. A chap called Eric and The Cuckoos. He insisted that his Mum had to carry the cuckoos wherever they went in the palm of her hand – needless to say she received quite a few odd looks walking around town. He insisted a place at the table set every tea time where Eric would only eat chips and peas.

At 4 Bob had an imaginary job. He spent his Christmas money on a blue cassette carrying case which he used it as his briefcase containing his lunch and would place it on the back of his little green bike and go to work for Keith, who's office was in the bushes on the patch of grass outside the house. Quiet what the work was, we don't know, but it used to keep him happy! Funny that he never came in for a toilet?

Sammy the bear was his favourite childhood cuddly toy – it went with him everywhere including his holidays. Unfortunately he used to leave him behind sometimes- most notably in 1990 when Bob was 8 and it was left in Devon. Bob howled on the way home once he had realised. Only after a phone call to the owners, who had to reassure Bob that they were looking after him, that he calmed down.

When he was 6 his mum was managing a branch of McDonalds, Jay was really besotted with a girl she worked with called Debbie. He used to go all shy around her but she sent him his very first Valentine Card!

Growing up, Bob was a slow starter – At Playschool he was different from the other 5 year olds… he was 11. He was never a very popular child and I remember his mum and dad had to tie a bone round his neck just to get the dog to play with him.

It's fair to say that Bob wasn't the teacher's pet.… One of his old school reports says: ‘Bob was an ideal pupil who excelled in most subjects’. Sorry that should read: “He was an idle pupil, who was expelled from most subjects”!!!!!!

In Maths – Although very keen, Bob had a distinct problem differentiating between inches and centimetres!!!!!! I think he still has that problem today!

I entered Bob's life in 1993 after I met Vic. I came over for a Sunday roast 2 days before his 11th birthday – I got on famously with the family bar Bob. He was the little brother I never had and I relished in dishing out the sarcasm at the dinner table.

He was always and still is sensitive and hated being teased. He could give it but never take it, and would throw a strop as soon as anyone picked on him.

It was round the age of 13 Jonathan decided he wanted to be called Bob – which was the
same day he was galloping around the house pretending to be a horse. This was the start
of Bob's identity crisis.

Bob was forever in trouble at school for speaking his mind – the problem was he was never politically correct and it seemed to be always targeted at the teachers, needless to say the cleaners of the school knew him on a first name basis. However, he did start growing up after his suspension finished and allowed him to return to school.

Bob tried his culinary skills in his teens but he was so successful the first time that we said he could never top that dish so don't ever try again.

In 1997 we started to worry about his music tastes after finding in his possession a favourite of his, I'm a Barbie Girl by Aqua. If you ply him with enough booze tonight you may be lucky to witness his rendition and choreography.

Bob left school in 1998 to join Eric White for an apprenticeship in motor mechanics where he excelled in his job. In fact, Bob's such a hard worker, I believe he is described as God at work. This is because,…no one ever sees him…he makes his own rules…and its a miracle if he does any work!

However, to prove he did some work, some years later he managed to get a nasty cut on his bum cheek whilst working on a car, which needed to be inspected. He had no trouble exposing the wound for his colleagues but more embarrassed that they got to see that blue birth mark of his – sorry Bob!

Bob could be clumsy – on one occasion we went to KFC and Vic and I passed through the glazed double entrance where one door was closed shut. Bob, feeling famished, was pacing towards the busy queue and walked face first into the other door which was closed – it caused quite a commotion with the other customers with Vic and I rolling around in laughter.

The summer of ?8 at Ascot Train Station was when Bob spied a potential love of his life.
He had to meet this girl…

Laura was on platform 1 walking to school, and Bob was on platform 2 walking towards work during his early days at Eric White. The tracks prevented Bob from going over and using one of his chat up lines.

He mentioned to his mate, Drew, how he'd seen a girl and that he thought her name was Laura. Drew's parents were friends with Laura's. Laura and Drew happened to be having a joint birthday party in Pauline and Brian's garden.

That night, when midnight struck a yell from the parents to the kids to leave the garden was heard. A young Michael Willatts was scanning the garden from inside with his nose squashed firmly against the patio door for any laggers and yelped to his mum and dad, &quotLOOK, LAURA'S KISSING THAT BOY&quot.

The rest as they say is history…

Now look he's a fine specimen. He likes to think he is modern man who's favourite colour is pink, cooks in the kitchen and wears his heart on his sleeve.

What I can say is he is a fantastic Uncle to our children- although saying that he is still learning to lose gracefully when playing games with Luke on the PlayStation.

Bob is loyal. All I can say is he is still an avid supporter of Brentford football club. This is a football team that has done nothing but disappoint him and betray his hopes and dreams for the last 7 years. If that is anything to go by Laura can walk all over him and give him 7 years of misery and he'll still think things are going to turn round in August!

Being married for 6 years and 364 days, I feel I can give these two some words of wisdom learnt along the way:

Bob:

It doesn't matter how often you change your job, you're still going to end up with the same boss.
Laura:
Just humour him.
For both of you:

There's two secrets to keep your marriage brimming

1. Whenever you're wrong, admit it,
2. Whenever you're right, shut up.

TELEGRAMS

* There are however, a few people who couldn't be here today, but have sent along their best wishes, so a big thank you to all and I'm now going to read a small selection of the cards and messages received by the happy couple. Cards

* Eric says sorry he is unable to travel down from Scotland to share your special day. He wishes you both all the best but on the other hand is relieved he isn't missing his chips and peas.

* Dear Bob
We're sorry we couldn't make your special day, but felt it too emotional losing a special guy such as yourself, will see you again soon. From all the girls at Spearmint Rhino.

face Bob
I do have to say how lucky you are Bob. You will leave here having gained a partner that is warm, loving and caring. A partner who is funny, and who radiates kindness where ever she goes. [pause]

face Laura
And Laura [pause] how lucky you are as well [pause] you leave today having gained a [pause] beautiful new dress.

Now, in case any of you are wondering why I asked Bob to place his hand on top of Laura's, I will tell you now. Bob … as one of my final roles as your Best Man, it is with great pleasure that I have been able to give you the very last ten minutes in which you will ever have the upper hand over Laura.

So then, Ladies and Gentleman, it gives me immense pleasure, not to mention immense relief, to invite you all to be upstanding and raise your glasses in a toast to Bob and Laura,

On behalf of everyone here I can truly say that you are wished nothing but the best for the future.

May your love be modern enough to survive the times, and old fashioned enough to last forever.

Mr. &amp Mrs. Hart!

AND FINALLY Can I just say thanks for listening to my speech this afternoon… and as I said to my wife the first time she saw me naked..… THANKS FOR LAUGHING!