As the maid of honor, the speech is your time to shine.
Having helped the couple get through the wedding preparations, you stand by them on their big day. Now, it’s time to give a speech about how much you value their presence in your life.
It’s natural to feel nervous about speaking at a wedding. Here are a few tips that can help make your speech a success. We’ve also prepared a list of 30 beautiful quotes about love and devotion.
4 Tips for Your Maid of Honor Speech
1. Feel Free to Get Nostalgic
The most important part of the speech is to show how much you care for the bride. Whether she’s your sister or a very close friend, you have an important role in her life.
So don’t hesitate to look back on the times you spent together. If you enjoy reminiscing about your shared moments, this is the right time to do it. Short anecdotes are a good idea.
But don’t keep the focus exclusively on the bride. You also need to talk about the new couple and their future together. You can bring up how they met, how they fell in love, or how they got engaged.
2. Speak from the Heart
Don’t worry about getting too emotional. Tell the couple that you love them. If you expect to start crying, you can even work that into your speech.
3. Be Funny, But Don’t Overdo It
If jokes come naturally to you, feel free to include them in your speech. Gentle teasing is perfectly appropriate. Your speech doesn’t have to be too formal or serious.
On the other hand, don’t try to cram in too many jokes. In-jokes can make a part of your audience feel left out.
Your goal is to express your true feelings about the couple. So make sure to include a few moments of sincerity.
4. Practice, Practice, Practice
Even if you enjoy public speaking in other situations, you may get overwhelmed by standing in the limelight. But if your speech is well-practiced, you won’t end up tongue-tied.
It’s a good idea to record yourself and listen to the recording carefully. You may need to slow down or speed up your way of speaking. Sometimes it’s necessary to cut out parts of your speech, even if they look good on paper.
But don’t just practice alone. Invite a few friends over as a test audience. This will also help you get over the stage fright.
3 Common Mistakes and How to Prevent Them
1. Avoid Paying Attention to Best Man
The best man may have a different speech style. He might try to get you involved in his own speech. But it’s better to stay focused on your own toast. Don’t make any last-minute changes unless you’re sure of them.
2. Don’t Talk About Yourself Too Much
The focus of the first part of your speech is on the bride. The second part should focus on the couple.
While your own feelings about the couple are important, you should keep a careful balance. Don’t talk about yourself too much. Avoid talking about your own past or your general views on life.
3. Don’t Bring Up Anyone’s Exes
It’s a faux pas to bring up the bride’s ex in any context. You should also avoid mentioning her new spouse’s past love life. Even in a joking context, the topic is embarrassing for everyone involved.
30 Quotes about Love
Here is a list of quotes you can use when you’re toasting the happy couple.
- “We need joy as we need air. We need love as we need water. And we need each other as we need the earth we share.” – Maya Angelou
- “A good marriage is at least 80 percent good luck in finding the right person at the right time. The rest is trust.” – Nanette Newman
- “Marriage is a mosaic you build with your spouse. Millions of tiny moments that create your love story.” – Jennifer Smith
- “You don’t love someone because they’re perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they’re not.” – Jodi Picoult
- “What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined… to strengthen each other… to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories.” – George Eliot
- “There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.” – Sarah Dessen
- “You deserve a lover who wants to dance with you, who goes to paradise every time he looks into your eyes and never gets tired of studying your expressions.” – Frida Kahlo
- “Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. And it settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses.” – Ann Landers
- “You don’t find love, it finds you. It’s got a little bit to do with destiny, fate, and what’s written in the stars.” – Anaïs Nin
- “With a long relationship, things die and then are rekindled, and that shared process of rebirth deepens the love.” – Joni Mitchell
- “Happily ever after is not a fairy tale. It’s a choice.” – Fawn Weaver
- “If you are generous with your heart, you have no idea of the depth & breadth of love’s reach.” – Margaret Cho
- “How many kinds of love / Might there be in the world, / And how many formations might they make / And who am I ever / To imagine I could know / Such a marvelous business?” – Mary Oliver
- “In the opinion of the world, marriage ends all, as it does in a comedy. The truth is precisely the opposite: it begins all.” – Anne Sophie Swetchine
- “Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.” – Zelda Fitzgerald
- “Don’t ever think I fell for you, or fell over you. I didn’t fall in love, I rose in it.” – Toni Morrison
- “Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality.” – Emily Dickinson
- “Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch it and it darts away.” – Dorothy Parker
- “Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get–only with what you are expecting to give–which is everything.” – Katharine Hepburn
- “A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” – Mignon McLaughlin
- “Love is blind — marriage is the eye-opener.” – Pauline Thomason
- “If all else perished and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.” – Emily Brontë
- “Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.” – Ursula K. Le Guin
- “If I get married, I want to be very married.” – Audrey Hepburn
- “Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.” – Oprah Winfrey
- “To be brave is to love someone unconditionally, without expecting anything in return. To just give.” – Madonna
- “There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.” – George Sand
- “Love is everything it’s cracked up to be. That’s why people are so cynical about it.” – Erica Jong
- “To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow–this is a human offering that can border on miraculous.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
- “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. What then kills love? Only this: Neglect.” – Jeanette Winterson
A Final Word
We went with quotes from famous and insightful women. But when choosing the best quote for your speech, follow your own taste. When you find a quote that speaks to you, the rest of your speech will fall into place.
