That invitation can strike fear among people who are asked to give a toast at a wedding, to present an award, to congratulate someone on a promotion, to remember a colleague retiring after 25 years.
Yet it doesn’t have to.
This is for anyone giving a short speech whose purpose is to honor someone else.
It’s for all those speeches that mean something, that aren’t televised, that are there to honor the great works and deed others have done in their lives.
You’re part of an organization that gives out awards each year and this year you get to present one of them! Figure out what to say that’s short, sweet, and meaningful.
Wedding Speeches: Best Man Speeches, Maid of Honor Speeches, Father and Mother of the Bride Speeches
Your best friend is getting married and you get to give a toast. Guidance for best men, maids of honor, father and mother of the bride—anyone who needs to wish the happy couple well.
Promotions
A colleague is getting promoted and you want to talk about their achievements and efforts with some good natured fun thrown in.
How do you say goodbye to the key employee who has worked for you for the last 20 years?
What do you say at your own retirement?
Is your mentor or parent retiring and you want to toast them?
Birthday party toasts and anniversary speeches
What about the people who are a really big deal in our lives? What do you say to them on their important days? What would you say at your parents’ 50th wedding anniversary? What about your spouse’s 40th birthday?
Any occasion where you have to “say a few words”
I probably missed a few speech categories above, but any time that you need to give a speech that honors another person, this guide is your guide.
A quick note before we begin, COVID has cut the number of in-person gatherings down dramatically. Yet people are finding creative ways to do events and ceremonies online. If you’re unable to give a short speech in-person (due to COVID or other circumstances) here are some ideas to do instead:
Speakers tend to have two problems when it comes to giving short speeches:
They tell me two things:
First: I can’t think of anything to say
Or
Second: I have too much to say, there’s no way I’ll fit it all in
What to do?
Let’s tackle each one, starting with the first.
But, before we do, let’s begin with Step 1–it’s helpful to have a doc open or a set of notes as you go through this guide.
We speak around 135 to 150 words per minute. But when it comes to giving a speech, you want to give yourself extra time to take it slow, to allow for applause and laughter. I’d suggest 100-115 words per minute to gauge how much you need to prepare.
For a 3 minute toast: 300-345 words
For a 5 minute toast: 500 words to 575
For a 10 minute toast: 1000 words to 1150 words
I wouldn’t go beyond 10 minutes for any ceremonial speech–err on the side of brevity.
Find out also when you are expected to give your speech during the event. If you are going early, you can err on the side of being a bit longer than expected. If you are one of the last to speak, keep it as short as possible.
Many toasts and short speeches have the same sections to them but not always in the order below. You can mix and match as needed.
Acknowledgments and Thank yous:
Depending on the formality of the event, you have to thank certain people who put the event together or who are so important that they deserve to be recognized. Word of caution: Do not go overboard in this portion and make the whole speech one long list of thank-yous.
Stories:
Stories will make up the bulk of your toast—they are the perfect vehicle to demonstrate change throughout the speech. It’s where you can talk about the deeds of the person you’re honoring or the significance of the event.
Advice:
You’ll find sections of advice in many toasts—the person giving the toast often has words of wisdom for the happy couple during a wedding toast or sage advice to those just starting on their careers during the speaker’s own retirement speech. This is where you can take the lessons of change you’ve experienced and give them to the audience or the people who are a part of your toast.
Significance of the event:
Sometimes the event itself is important enough that it should be mentioned and featured in your toast (other times, you may just need a few sentences).
Opening and Closing:
Any speech will have a captivating opening and closing, and toasts are no different. The best ones will have openings and closings that relate to one another; oftentimes, the closing can even contain a special 1-2 line mini-toast that sums up the speech itself. We’ll work on specific techniques later on in this guide to craft closings that will be remembered long after the main speech concludes.
Here are some questions to get you started, we’ll dive into the specifics momentarily:
The best place to start are the dual goals of any ceremonial speech: You want to honor the person and honor the event.
From a wedding toast to a retirement speech to an anniversary celebration, the goals are the same.
You want to honor a person or a couple and the event itself.
Great toasts and short speeches revolve around telling great stories about the person you’re honoring. Ideally you want a mix of funny and touching stories to tell.
Brainstorming ideas for wedding toasts, birthday speeches, and anniversary speeches:
Brainstorming ideas for retirement speeches:
Brainstorming ideas for awards speeches:
Key questions:
Key questions:
Now that you’ve generated plenty of ideas, you’ll want to determine a structure for your toast.
details the most common ways you’ll see someone give a toast. The first is advice-based, followed by story-based, and then third, the extended metaphor. See how each one fits the toast you want to give based on the occasion. You can also mix and match the forms as you see fit.
Speeches that are advice-based organize themselves around bits of wisdom or principles. The best example is from the Retirement Manifesto. Here, the speaker uses his retirement to give life advice to those in the audience.
Each piece of advice is followed up by a short story, quote, or something else.
How to adopt this form:
Come up with three to seven principles that you strive to live your life by. Avoid cliches when possible (“live life to its fullest,” “savor every moment,”); instead, think of what you would say if someone asked for life advice over a cup of coffee. What would you tell them?
Another great source for inspiration is Dr. Randy Pausch’s “Last Lecture,” where he gave all the lessons in his life knowing that he had a terminal illness. Do an internet search to find its recording and subsequent book. It’s worth watching multiple times.
Once you have the lessons figured out, find a way to creatively tell each lesson. Most people opt for anecdotes but if you have an interesting bit of research or a shocking number, use those sparingly to break it up.
You can also go the opposite way—think of memorable moments from your life, ones that made you who you are today—ones that changed you (back to the Hero’s Journey). What lessons can you draw from those moments? You can either lead with those moments as a story or headline the section and tell the story after.
Each piece of advice is the headline for the section with the content that follows illuminating the advice. You can also go the opposite way and tell a story and conclude the lesson from it.
Each lesson doesn’t need to be the same length—for some, you’ll have more to say than others and that’s OK.
Why 3-7? It’s a starting point and there’s no real rhyme or reason. Three because many speeches are organized around threes. Seven is an upper limit to help keep the speech on the shorter side. Go with what feels right to you.
When it’s appropriate:
You’ll find advice-based speeches most often at retirements, promotions, birthday parties, and occasionally weddings. Usually the person giving the advice is much wiser, experienced, or older, than the people listening.
For example, a father of the bride may be giving marriage advice to the new couple. Or a fire chief is giving advice to a room of candidates upon their graduation from training. Or someone is celebrating 50 years on this earth and wants to give advice to those a bit younger in the audience.
Story-based speeches lead with a story rather than a set of lessons. Sometimes they blend with the advice version but not all stories are told as moral warnings. Some are told to show someone’s great character or a touching moment.
How to do this form:
Story-based speeches can be a series of vignettes or they can be one long complete story. Think first about the values and character of the person you’re honoring and find the stories that demonstrate those. You might have a few stories or one really good one.
Steve Jobs’ Stanford commencement address is a great example of the form–he tells three stories and makes a connection between each one.
When they’re appropriate:
Almost always. This is the most popular way of giving a toast where you talk about the great stories of a person and use those to help make your point.
However, you’ll find them most often in wedding toasts where you get to hear great stories of the groom and bride. Other times, when honoring someone at their retirement or birthday party, you’ll want to tell stories that illuminate their best qualities.
How do you tell the difference between story-based and advice-based? Aren’t they two sides of the same coin?
Yes, they can be. As you’ll notice in the retirement speech, it’s advice and story driven. That’s fine. The goal in making the distinction is that you won’t always have advice to give after a story or the point of the story may be for laughter or sentimentality. You can end a story with lessons that you learned or what impressed you the most about it, but you just don’t have to. Plus, you probably won’t headline a story with its advice and values, “Now let me tell you about the time when John showed courage.” Let the story imply what was shown and draw the details after.
These structures aren’t rigid and can be mixed and matched.
Someone out there wrote some speech advice that’s mostly correct: Don’t fill the opening of a speech with thank-yous nor the whole thing. That’s almost right.
How to do this form:
A thank-you based speech, when done correctly, can work. Instead of headlining each section with advice as seen above, come up with whom you are thankful for and why. Use each person or group as a headline.
Within each one, give words of thanks, tell short stories, and use that as an opportunity to thank them.
When appropriate:
You’ll find this type of speech most appropriate when you are the center of attention for an award or other occasion where many people helped you get to the big day.
You’re receiving an award; you are graduating at the top of your class; you are celebrating a birthday surrounded by friends and family and they all had an impact on you.
This is the trickiest to pull off but it can be powerful when done correctly. Take a look at this award acceptance speech from Audra Lawlor at Girl Meets Dirt. It doesn’t fit neatly into any of the categories above, but look at how it’s giving lessons and telling a story all at once.
Can you mix and match?
Yes, and that’s what makes each toast unique. In the body of your toast, you can have a part where you tell great stories about the person you’re honoring and then offer a few words of advice to the crowd.
You can thank specific people who helped you achieve a certain goal but then provide advice to the rest of the crowd.
Key takeaways:
As promised, here’s how to edit your speech down if you feel that you have too much to say or you are way over in your allotted time and word count.
First, determine the funniest story and the most sentimental story–just tell those two as part of the story section in your speech. You ideally want both to balance each out–plus, sometimes a funny story is taken seriously by the audience and it just becomes sentimental.
Second, cut down any acknowledgments or thank-yous or cut the section entirely. You can make one or two acknowledgments if there’s a VIP in the room (like your CEO or the bride’s father) but cut out the number of people you are thanking.
Third, leave only the essential details in the story you’re telling. If there are extraneous characters that don’t matter much to the plot, take them out. Think of each story like a movie trailer–only add in the absolutely necessary details and let the audience fill in the rest.
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