Speech by Richard Hadden

Speech Type: Best man
Speech Creator: Richard Hadden
Speech Date: Nov 1998
This is the speech we (yes, two best men) just gave on Saturday. The groom couldn't decide between us, so he gave us both the job of best man. Even standing in line at the altar.…

There were going to be three, but one jibbed and fled. The setting was a bit tricky (in case it helps anybody else) because he is
an atheist, Welsh-speaking rugby captain and she is a home counties English rose with two vicars for parents. We managed to talk about most of his past though and everybody is still talking to us.

Friends loved it, even if some family members didn't (or didn't understand it through not welsh language difficulty but godly innocence). We had a ready-marked excision if people looked bored, but we didn't have to use it.

The speech requires three rugby balls of wildly different sizes and two fit bridesmaids. There is a section marked SASH where Sasha and Nicola, the bridesmaids and both long-term friends of the bride, stood up and talked about Liz's embarrassing moments.

RICH
Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for coming to this celebration of the marriage of our beloved Liz and Evan.
Croeso ir dathliad o briodas ein annuyl Liz ac Ifan.
And much as I would like to carry on in Welsh, that's Tim's job.…
[Only joking]

TIM
Traditionally, the best man thanks the groom on behalf of the bridesmaids. These are 90’s maids those, and I am sure, if they can stop crying, Sasha and Nicola will thank him for themselves.

RICH
And thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Woodmore for their generosity and devotion for giving Liz and Evan a dream wedding. I'm sure you'll agree it's been spectacular.

TIM
Now, some of you may have been wondering — if you're still sober — why there are two best men. If you've hit been hitting the cause hard, no, you're not seeing double. There were in fact originally going to be three of us.

RICH
And we can now confirm that the third has done the honourable thing…

TIM
And fled the country.

RICH
In fact, Rich is travelling with his girlfriend Karen, just so that we would have at least one telegram to read out. Although they can't be here today, they've sent one saying:

"Changi prison dreadful STOP sorry wedding present seized by customs STOP please wire $10,000 bail STOP". Actually, it says [whatever they said] / [read other telegrams. 1 minute].

TIM
Now, the modern best man has two major tasks. The first is to organise the stag do, and the second is to give a speech, describing the previous life of the groom. Many of you will be aware that after Evan's not one but two stag nights —

RICH
They were hardly stag nights. Bambi here died 12 hours into the first one, and ‘phoned his mother for help in the second.…

TIM
Yes, we should have taken Liz instead, from what I hear about her hen night. She can swap underwear with me any time.…

RICH
She already did. What else do you think "something borrowed, something blue" was going to be other than your M&S y-fronts?
Let's just hope this speech is more successful then the stag do, and not as… long and hard… as Liz's hen night.

TIM
Anyway, after the Bambi night, Ev had to undergo major surgery, spend three weeks in bed and take six weeks of work.
This still doesn't tell you why it takes two of us to describe the groom, though.
Well, as the man in Moss Bros said… "There's a lot to fit in".

RICH
In fact, in several ways this isn't a traditional wedding. Two best men … candlelight … bilingual vows … Welsh rugby anthems.… It's just a shame, given this is almost a winter wedding wedding, that the vicar wouldn't let them have the pantomime theme wedding they wanted.

I thought "Puss in Boots" was very appropriate.

TIM
Evan and Liz have torn up the nuptial rule book in a few other places too.

RICH
Outside Gloucester Road tube, for one.

TIM
We're not supposed to mention that.

RICH
Are we not?
[Tim shakes head]

What about the accidental circumcision?
[Tim: No]

And the sheep
[Tim: Definitely not]

TIM
No, I think we'd be better off talking about Ifan's first love instead.
We can even tell them how his balls got bigger.

RICH
You mean the bank manager's daughter?

TIM
Erm, no, not that first love.

RICH
The one on whose account he'd have been happy to have made a deposit or a withdrawal… even though there was no interest?

TIM
[mini rugby ball]
No! I'm talking about rugby you fool!
We don't know much about Ifan's early life in Wales. His friends all say he was innocent.… All we have are some food bills and some soiled socks.

RICH
Soon, he was growing into a strapping teenager. His balls had grown bigger from all that practising.
And he was playing a lot of rugby.
[normal rugby ball]
Like any healthy young man, though, Ifan felt he wasn't getting enough snatch, clean and jerk.
So, he decided to build himself a weights bench for his GCSE design technology. He slaved at it, worked for hours…

TIM
And when it was finally finished, it was a masterpiece. Setting the tone for the rest of his engineering career. Unfortunately when he put the bench in his room… it was too big to fit in and still pump!
[Tim pumps away]
Story of his life, eh, Liz?

RICH
Thanks to that bench, still at school, Ifan became the youngest person to play rugby for Pwhelli men's team.
He used to enjoy the more social aspects of the game.

TIM
But he never scored… a try.

RICH
Ifan had grown into a well-rounded young man. Calm, level-headed, confident, a prefect at school, he had only one weak spot. His nickname.
You were sensitive about your lips, weren't you, Dinghy?

TIM
So sensitive, he pushed someone up against the shelves in the library. And the shelves fell over…onto the shelves behind them, and those in turn fell onto the shelves behind them, and so on, like dominoes.

RICH
Despite this, Ifan won a place at Queens’ College Cambridge.

TIM
He had many adjustments to make. His name for one. Then there was the language – Ev left Wales bilingual, but his second language was lager. It also took some time to master the "unlock, turn the handle and push" method of door opening, rather than simply leaning on them.…

Then there was remembering the location of the toilet. This was particularly tricky after a few drinks. Or when asleep. Or both.

RICH
You see, Ev sleepwalks. No real problem, if you live in a bungalow, although he sometimes mistook his parents’ room for the loo. When you live in the smallest room in College up three flights of stairs however.…

Ev solved the problem of the stairs by not using them. Or the toilet. At home his parents put up with his occasional forgetfulness, but college members proved less forgiving, particularly the unfortunate neighbour who heard water running in the middle of night and opened her door to investigate.

And Ev had only himself to blame when his answerphone went mouldy and stopped working.

TIM
Incidentally, Liz's choice for the first dance music was going to be "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head".

Nocturnal matters came to a head on the College rugby trip to Wales. Ev met a nice girl from South Wales.

She invited him back to her place.

RICH
Unfortunately for Ev, he was polite enough to answer Nature's call somewhere other than the corner of her room.

By the time he came back, she'd locked the door and he spent the rest of the night wandering around Cardiff in his socks and Y-fronts.

****** if the audience are bored, skip on until *****

TIM
Ev's watery troubles continued that year, when his friends kindly threw him in the river after some serious drinking.

Now, Ev claims he can surf — he did it once at Porth Neigel, got nailed to ocean floor by the wave when it dumped on him and has never looked back. He's never tried again, but he's a man of great conviction and just knows he can. Unfortunately, he can't swim.

RICH
Not that we knew this. We just thought he was waving. A lot. In fact, he was drowning, and he knew it.

Ev wouldn't be here today if Stu hadn't jumped into the river…

and told him to stand up and stop being an arse because the water's only five feet deep.

TIM
Where water's not concerned, however, Evan is basically a well-behaved chap. And romantic, too.

In his third year in College, he let his opponent win the JCR Presidential Election just so that he could get into her… good books. Last year, he got a tattoo just to impress Liz. And after all this time, he still supports the Welsh rugby team.

RICH
Although, sound trader that he is, he often bets on the opposition.

TIM
Anyway, we all know that romantic inclinations and large quantities of strong lager don't always mix well. One morning Ev awoke in a young ladies bedchamber in a certain all female college. Feeling the most honourable thing to do was make a dash for it before she woke up, he quietly dressed and exited her room.

Only to discover that it was only five o'clock and this college did not open its gates (to those leaving as well as entering) until six.

RICH
Well, what could Ev do? In a stroke of hung-over genius, he hid out in the gent's toilets until the stroke of six, and then made the walk of shame back to Portugal Place. With three Sunday papers.

TIM
He was fooling no-one. Although we were grateful for the papers.

****** start again here if bored *****

Ev was living in Portugal Place, with me, the ushers Paddy and Jess, who did a tremendous job today I'm sure you'll all agree — stand up and take a bow, you two. No, stand up, Paddy — and several others.

It was in this final year of his degree, and the first signs of a romance between Evan and Liz began to appear. Who better to tell you about that, and a little about Liz herself, than another Portugal Place resident and bridesmaid, Sasha Mxxx, and her childhood friend Nicola?

SASH & NIC
I love Liz I really do. I love her. Cry.

RICH
Although as a couple they did things slightly differently to most people (they went on holiday to South Africa… separately), they clearly hit it off tremendously, and it wasn't long before they were an item.

TIM
We were all very happy for them. But Sasha seemed to be particularly pleased. Talking to her one day, she said to me, "Don't you think it's great about Evan and Liz?" Of course, I agreed. She continued, "Don't you think Ev's done really well for himself?" Naturally, I rose to his defence, pointing out that Liz had done equally well. "Oh yes," said Sasha, "But it really good for Evan. I mean, she's a lot better than all that rubbish he used to bring home last year!"

RICH
For the record, it wasn't a lot of rubbish.

SASH
Soon they were engaged. This was a shock to many people, who nowadays expect much longer relationships before the "M" word is mentioned.

TIM
What, mortgage?

SASH
No.

RICH
Marlow?

SASH
No.

TIM
Mother-in-law?

SASH
Well, almost.

Marriage.

RICH
But even those with initial misgivings, soon came to realise that Evan and Liz were, quite simply, in love. Both knew exactly what they wanted to do. They even agreed what that thing was.

So we came around from thinking, "They're crazy!"

TIM
To thinking, "They're very lucky".

RICH
Mr and Mrs Wxxxxxxx, Evan is a fine example of a Welshman, and a Queensman, with 50% extra free.

He is honest, loyal, determined, gentle and loving, if a little bit pig headed at times.

SASH
And Mrs. Richards, Elizabeth-Ann is warm, patient, funny and outgoing, and, like the English rose she is, has just enough thorns to make a pig think twice.

TIM
Ladies and gentlemen, would you please raise your glasses with us and drink a toast to the bride and groom.

Evan… Ifan… and Liz … Liz.…

all of us here, family and friends, love you very much. You have made all us very happy as individuals. May you find as much — more! — love and happiness in your marriage.

ALL
To Ev and Liz!

Iechyd Da!

[pronounced ee-yeck-hud da!]

Sit down, smoke cigar, get fxxxxd.