Speech by Martin Poole

Speech Type: Best man
Speech Creator: Martin Poole
Speech Date: Jul 2001
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Martin and it is my very great privilege to be here today as Phil's best man, although being Best Man is probably the most terrifying ordeal you could inflict on anyone and I can assure you all that this is not the first time today that I have stood up from a warm seat with a piece of paper in my hand!
I am sure you will all agree that this has turned out to be a brilliant wedding celebration so far. Even the vicar eventually remembered the names of those he was marrying after a little quiet prompting. Unfortunately every silver lining has a cloud and so here I am.
Firstly on behalf of the bridesmaids, I'd like to thank Phil for his kind words. I have to agree they look wonderful and have done an excellent job today in looking after Sarah, getting her here and caring for her wedding day nerves. I just want to know how many vodka and cokes it took?
Now to the point you've all been waiting for (except Phil that is) where I completely assasinate the groom's character, which is traditional on such occasions.
While I was trying to write this speech, I was looking in one of those guides you get about being a best man, and up there with the important duties of getting him home from his stag weekend alive and remembering the wedding ring it had a little checklist of things to do and I'd like to share a few of those with you today. Apparently, I have to:
1) Help the groom dress – I thought if he doesn't know by now then we are in serious trouble. But after the events of last weekend I thought that should have read ‘help the groom INTO his dress, but more about the stag do in a minute.
2) Make sure the groom uses the toilet – I thought I can show him where it is (point him in the right direction, so to speak) but I'm not making sure.
3) Ensure the groom's face and hair are in order – Well, God didn't do it right the first time around, so I've got no hope.
4) Make sure his trousers are done up – at this point I'm thinking that perhaps somebody else should have been best man. And finally…
5) See that angry ex-girlfriends are kept at bay – I couldn't actually find any angry ones. Most of the ones I came across seemed pretty damn relieved that he was getting hitched.
If you think that list is pretty daunting, I pulled together my own list of duties as Best Man which was far worse. These duties were to get Phil to the church ON TIME (which, as anyone who knows Phil can vouch, Phil being anywhere on time is a first), SOBER (which again, as anyone who knows Phil can vouch, is unusual) AND SMART, which since he has decided to copy the suit that I'm wearing today I suppose I've got to say he's achieved that one.
Well, what can I tell you about Phil that you don't already know; you have known him enough years now to know all about his bad habits, gambling, drinking to excess, stopping out until early hours and coming home smelling of curry. But having said that, Phil is one of the funniest people I know and I'm not just talking about his pool playing skills.
In the years I have known Phil he has been kind enough to give me an endless source of ammunition to help me deliver this speech, some of which I was going to share with you today. That was until last weekend – the stag do! So I'm not going to tell you the story of:
1, how Phil, new in his job, was responsible for the ordering of the necessary materials for the building of a 100ft concrete wall only to find that the builders ran out 30ft short and then had to knock down everything they'd already done.
And I'm not going to tell you the story of:
2, how Phil has trouble keeping his car on the road, particularly around corners. So much so that it has been known for him to come off the road on the exact same corner not once, but twice.
And I'm not going to tell you the story of:
3, how Phil is such a dab hand with the old bar-b-q that to get it lit he uses pieces of his garden fence.
And I'm not going to tell you the story of:
4, on the subject of gardening, how Phil is quite a passionate gardener. So much so that he has been known to talk to his plants.
No, instead I'm going to talk to you about the stag do. As some of you may know we went to Newquay in Cornwall for Phil's do last weekend. The weekend actually got off to a bit of a disastrous start when, about a 5 hours from home and a 100 miles from Newquay and just as we were saying that we're making perfect time to get showered, changed and hit the town, we found out that the hotel had double booked and there was nowhere for us to stay. But after Phil running round Newquay like a headless chicken, a visit to the Tourist Information and a couple of beers (purely for the calming influence) we actually found somewhere ok, although for us all to fit in it meant us all squeezing into two rooms and people sleeping with people that they wouldn't normally be expected to sleep with.
It was actually Phil's birthday on the day of his stag night and I decided to find out if Phil shared his birthday with any famous people and found that he actually shares his birthday with Robin Williams. Now for those of you that didn't quite hear me right there, that's not Robbie Williams, the supposedly good looking, talented singer from Burslem with whom Phil shares absolutely nothing with, not even a birthday (as anybody who has heard Phil sing Bohemian Rhapsody on a karaoke can vouch) but Robin Williams the actor who stared in the Mrs Doubtfire movie which I thought was very apt considering the get-up that Phil hit the nightlife of Newquay. He looked very fetching in his dress, pony-tails, big boobs and ball n chain. He actually played the part with a very worrying confidence and at one point I began to wonder who was going to be arriving today wearing white! Most definitely a good sport though but still deserving his dunking in the sea after leaving the nightclub although we thought we'd gone a bit too far when we saw the Greenpeace ‘save the whale’ ship arriving on the horizon. I would have liked to bring the dress along today for you all to see but unfortunately as Phil was trying to dry it off around a campfire on the beach it actually went up in flames. Fortunately he wasn't wearing it at the time but it did mean that to get back to the hotel he had to walk through the centre of Newquay with nothing on but a pair of wet boxer shorts. He was just lucky that he wasn't wearing a pair of pink and white striped Boz's Bloomers.
Now finally before I do the toasts, I now have a few telegrams to read from absent friends and relatives:
(Read a few cards with the following funny ones thrown in)
1. From the Honeymoon Hotel , Cancun, Mexico
Congratulations to you both on this day. We very much look forward to making your honeymoon a special and memorable one. Please do not worry if there is some delay when you arrive as we are putting something on for you…..the roof.
2. To the groom,
A loyal and valued customer, our very best wishes to you and your bride. Where would we be without your support.
Ladbrokes Bookmakers.
3. From all lads at Bignall End Cricket Club: We've found Phil to be useless in every position. Hope Sarah has more luck. Congratulations.
Phil, you have pulled a blinder in marrying Sarah. You have found someone who is beautiful, well mannered, charming, smart, funny, loving and caring. Sarah you have found..… well you have found Phil.
Seriously, though, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank both Sarah and Phil for being great friends to me over the years. There's not many best men who can describe the bride as a true friend, as well as the groom, but I'm lucky in that I can do exactly that. It is a great honour, albeit the most terrifying experience of my life, to be asked to be best man here today and I just hope neither of them has need of my services again in the future because I'm not doing it.
On behalf of the bride and groom, I'd like to thank everyone here for sharing their day. On behalf of myself, I wish you'd all stayed at home because things would have been much easier on me.
It gives me immense pleasure (not to mention relief) to invite you all to stand and raise your glasses in a couple of toasts. Firstly would you all please join me in a toast to the parents of the Bride and Groom, for helping to organise this very special day, and to those who were sadly unable to be here today. The parents…
And finally to Sarah and Phil, Mr and Mrs Taylor, a nicer more perfectly suited couple you could not wish to meet. We wish them well for the future, and hope they enjoy a long and happy marriage. Sarah and Phil…