Speech by Stuart Clarke

Speech Type: Best man
Speech Creator: Stuart Clarke
Speech Date: oct 2002
Best Man's Speech
Master of ceremonies
Good evening ladies and gentlemen, I'm the best man, for those of you who don't know me my name is Stuart. Tonight I'm also going to be your master of ceremonies. Without further ado I'd like to ask Joanna's dad, Frank to come up and start the speeches. Please give him a massive round of applause.

Thanks Frank, I'm sure its not easy having to be the first one to speak. I'm sure Dave & Joanna really appreciate everything you've said.

It now gives me great please to invite Dave to the front, for what I'm sure will be an entertaining speech.

Introduce yourself
It's going to be tricky to follow two great speeches. I must say though that it's the first time Joanna's dad has been able to speak for more than 5 minutes without interruption from the women in his family, and probably the last time that Dave gets to do so.

First of all I would like to compliment both the bridesmaids, both Helen and Sarah look wonderful today and have done an absolutely fantastic job in supporting Joanna.

Intro to how I became the best man
When Dave asked me to be best man I was really proud, but this was quickly replaced by a feeling of dread about the speech. For the last 8 months each time we have met Dave has taken great pleasure in treating me to horror stories about what happened when he gave his best man's speech. So I decided my best approach would be to seek some advice about my new found responsibilities so I consulted a book called ‘The Best Man's checklist”.

The book tells you to start all speeches with a joke & I promise I'll start soon. It also says that you are the most forgiving audience & you'll laugh at the lamest joke. I intend to severely test this theory.

The book goes on to explain that amongst the best man's responsibilities are the following:
Help the groom dress – thanks but no thanks if he hasn't learnt now well.
Ensure the groom uses the toilet – I did check this and it wasn't pleasant.
Check his hair is in order – easy that one!
Check he's done his fly up – but to be honest I didn't want to go there.
After reading this I decided to abandon the book as give me no practical help whatsoever. I decided I needed to rely on my memories of Dave, which leads me nicely on to how I know him.

How I know Dave
I've known Dave for over 20 years. We first met through playing chess together. But it wasn't long before our interest in chess changed to beer and that was the start of a very long and happy friendship.

I can't recall everything but Dave's miss-spent youth involved many troublesome episodes, including…
Squaring up to the landlord of the Farrars Arms shortly before being barred.
Sneaking bottles out of the Spar's cellars ready for an evening's drinking.
Pinching signs and planting them in my mum and dad's garden (he'll have to explain that one later).
Arranging showings of porn moves at his house during the teacher's strike.

After many years of getting in trouble it never ceases to amaze me how often Dave is blamed for our exploits. I'd really like to thank him for taking the rap and just assure both our mothers that they got it right every time and it was always Dave's fault.

For those of you who know Dave really well many of his individual quirks will be familiar to you, but for those of you who don't please be on the look out for them tonight. These are my personal words of warning for the unsuspecting.
– If you do take a picture of the bride and groom tonight beware because Dave has a nasty habit of sticking his tongue out on photographs. Out of 36 pictures on our holiday to Kos I think there was 1 where Dave looked normal and that was because it was of the back of his head.
– I hope you take the opportunity to buy me and Dave a pint tonight but after you do make sure you stand well back as Dave may decide to balance the pint on his head, thereby demonstrating how much more able bald headed people are!
– If you're a smoker try to avoid taking Dave out into the gardens of the hotel as his pyromania may set in. In these situations do not rely on Dave's bravery as after he has lit a fire and the fire brigade have arrived he is likely to run like a coward and claim it was all someone else's doing.
– And finally and perhaps worst of all will be Dave's behaviour tomorrow morning. Over the years I've spent an inordinate amount of money getting Dave leg-less only to wake up to find Dave with a clear head and no hangover. He will then insist on making yours worse by singing, eating and being a general nuisance.

The bride
That's enough about Dave I'd like to say a few words about Joanna.

Joanna, I'm sure everyone here will agree with me when I say how stunning you look today.

I met Joanna through work about six years ago, at the time we working shifts so you could say that we spent many nights together. However, there are a few people in this room who could also say the same thing. At the time we had a great social life at work and a fantastic team and because of that we had many nights out.

When I first asked Dave on one of these work's night out, and introduced him to Joanna, I never could have dreamt that it would have led to us being here today.

Now Dave has said to me many times over the years that he would never get married but I don't think he ever could of imagined meeting a girl like Joanna. And I think Dave is very lucky man to have met her. I can say from own experience of knowing them both just how perfect they are for each other.

Words of Advice
But it now comes to the serious part of my speech where I must give you both some words of advice.

First Joanna, remember:
A man is like a tiled floor – lay it right first time and you can spend years walking all over it.

And Dave:
This is a piece of advice that most of the married men in this room will all have learnt themselves. The best way to remember your anniversary is to forget just once!

Toasts
Dave and I have had some excellent times together and I know we will continue to do so (whenever we can get away with it). Dave you are an excellent friend and it's been an honour to be your best man, I wish you and Joanna all the very best for the future.

On behalf of the bride and groom, I'd like to thank everyone here for sharing their day and making it so special.

It now gives me great pleasure to invite you all to stand in preparation for the toast.

Ladies & gentlemen, please raise your glasses to Mr & Mrs xxxxxx, Dave & Joanna.