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How to Toast a Wedding

Overview

Are you getting ready to make a wedding toast for a dear friend or relative? Cat got your tongue? Not sure which direction to head? Do not wing it. Take a few minutes to reflect on what to say at this special time.
Reflect.

Step 1

Before you sit down to plan or write the wedding toast, take time to reflect on your relationship with the bride and groom and their relationship with each other. Reflection time does not have to be planned. It can be done while you are driving to work or while waiting at the dentist's office. Many people have months in advance to plan their wedding toast. Do not let the reflection time paralyze you. If you keep a daily planner or journal, jot down notes and ideas that come to you that might work effectively as a part of the toast you offer. However, DO NOT let yourself begin to believe that your toast will solve world peace, cure cancer and/or ensure wedded bliss for all lucky enough to be within hearing distance. Remind yourself before you start with your real planning and editing that you should keep the toast short and from the heart. This is not about you. It is about people you love. Stay in the right frame of mind from the get-go. When you get the right combination of ideas and words together you will just know.
Step 2

Collect. During the days, weeks or months you are reflecting on the toast you will offer, start being a "verbal keepsake collector." Listen for the poignant, funny or meaningful words and phrases around you. Good places to consider are conversations, movies, television, church or magazines. Chat often with the bride and groom-to-be. If it suits your style, jot down words and phrases you think might be helpful in planning your toast.
Step 3

Research. Using books, magazines or the Internet, look for meaningful quotations that you might choose to use in the toast you create.
Step 4

Edit. Up to two weeks but not less than three days before the wedding, start editing your ideas. Cut out the ones that do not stick or do not work for this occasion. If it is not about the bride or groom or their relationship, get rid of it. A wedding toast is not the place to use that great story everybody loves about Aunt Alma. This is about the bride and groom. You are simply a conduit.
Step 5

Write. At least three days before the wedding, start writing the toast. Be honest. Figure out what your real message is. Be kind even if you are tempted to give them words of warning. Write from the heart. Maybe you choose to tell the story of how they met or what he said when he first told you about her or what she said when she told friends she said yes. Find the heart of their story. Go with it. Keep it down to two minutes or less. Read what you have written OUT LOUD. If you continually stumble on a word or phrase, change it no matter how much you love it. Keep editing and trying different words or phrases until it sounds right. Before the wedding, review the toast OUT LOUD at least five times. Carefully select two people who would be good editors to listen to your toast. Listen carefully to their feedback. If you get the same criticism more than once, consider changing that portion of your toast. They may even have other good ideas. Do not be so married to what you have written that you become stubborn.
Step 6

Write the final, edited toast on a notecard. Make a second copy that you give to someone you trust who will be attending the reception in the event that your copy gets misplaced. When it comes time to deliver, you may or may not need the notecard; you will just know what you need to say. Remember to smile and speak from the heart as you say the words or tell the story you have decided upon.

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Optional: A dictionary of quotes
Optional:
A dictionary of quotes
Keep your toast to two minutes or less. This is not about you. This is not about the bride's mother. This is not about the groom's brother. This is about the couple getting married. Be kind. If you have any doubts as to whether what you are considering saying is or is not appropriate, do not say it. Even if you do not drink, put something in your glass and lift it high as you are delivering the toast.
Keep your toast to two minutes or less.
This is not about you. This is not about the bride's mother. This is not about the groom's brother. This is about the couple getting married.
Be kind. If you have any doubts as to whether what you are considering saying is or is not appropriate, do not say it.
Even if you do not drink, put something in your glass and lift it high as you are delivering the toast.