Wedding Speech Nerves - How to Banish Stress

Nervous about your speech?

There are many people who are asked to give speeches at weddings these days; the bride, groom, best man/woman, mother or father of the bride or groom.

The first thing to remember is "why am i doing this?" It is because you care about the people involved and their celebration. The audience all care too, so they are on your side and want to support you and even laugh at your amusing anecdotes. If you keep this in mind, your speech will naturally become personal, endearing and interesting to those listening to it.

Success is all about feeling comfortable, so if you practice some deep breathing; the simplest is breathing in for a count of 7 and out for count of 11.

Once you get into this rhythm for a couple of minutes and focus, any negative thoughts you have buzzing round will go and you will feel more balanced and calm. Once in this relaxed state, visualise the run up to your speech and the speech itself in vivid detail. Imagine your posture and feel yourself smiling. Do this as many times as you can in the days before the wedding, it needn't take more than 5 minutes or so.

This normalises success in your brain, it can't differentiate between really delivering your speech all those times, or just doing it in your mind, then when you are actually at the reception, it will seem familiar and you will feel calm.

I reccomend the following:

• Don't put it off until the night before

• Write your speech on paper and whittle it down to cue cards with the main points in a size you can easily read at a glance

• Rehearse it well, visualise yourself giving it, smiling!

• Video yourself giving the speech

• Keep it short and sweet; between 3-5 minutes

• Structure the speech:

• Introduce it, "ladies and gentlemen"

• Choose a few stories, say 10 and pick the best 3

• Remember the main theme is "good luck, we wish you well"

• Make sure you don't use inside jokes or nicknames that noone else will understand

• Keep it clean - don't mention the stag/hen night antics

For more information and help please Contact Samantha