Tighten up your wedding celebration with a joint wedding toast

Wedding celebrations soar to new heights when graced with dazzling toasts. Sadly, most toasters are inexperienced and their efforts sputter. Some weddings suffer because they allow too many toasts. A good way to tighten up your upcoming celebration is to utilize a joint wedding toast.

Let’s say you want your best man and maid of honor to each make a toast. But suppose one of your mothers and one of your fathers also wants to make a toast. That may be too many.  You risk disrupting the flow of your party, especially if toasts ramble on too long and bore your guests to death.

Energize your wedding reception

A joint wedding toast is a unique way to energize your wedding reception and condense remarks into a more entertaining narrative.

This approach really takes the pressure off shy toasters, because they have another toaster up there with them providing support.

Joint wedding toasts work great when two toasters can tell stories that overlap, for example, a couple of siblings who grew up with the bride or groom. Or a mom and dad who can share a great story about raising their son or daughter.

Tell your toasters to follow these guidelines:

• Keep it short and sweet.  It is important to get to the point and make people smile.  A few minutes is all you need.
• Be careful with humor.  Avoid the risque.  Under no circumstances should you embarrass the person being toasted.
• Practice.  At the very least, jot down a brief outline of what you want to say.  If you’re prone to nervousness, you might want to script your toast and time it.

A successful joint wedding toast really requires an outline to coordinate who speaks when, and how their experiences with the couple overlap.

Here is an example on how a joint wedding toast might flow:

BEST MAN: Ladies and gentlemen, friends and family, my name is Allen Williams [Best Man’s name]. I have the honor of being Nick’s [Groom’s Name]’s best man.

I met Nick in college because of our mutual love of basketball. I’d like to think I taught him everything he knows about getting the ball through the hoop, but if you’ve ever seen either of us on the basketball court, you know that’s not totally true.

Coincidentally, the maid of honor at this illustrious affair also knows a thing or two about basketball. May introduce to you the lovely Susie Jones (maid of honor’s name).

MAID OF HONOR: Thank-you, Allen. Our beautiful bride tonight, Mary Sue Anderson, is my very best friend. As fate would have it, basketball seemed to have brought us together, too, so Allen and I thought it makes sense for us to combine our wedding toasts into one.

I played intramural basketball at college where I met Mary. We were both guards on the same team. We just clicked, beginning on the basketball court, where we terrorized the opposition. Credit goes to Mary for being an unselfish player, always looking for the open player to pass to for the quick basket. It’s that unselfishness that drew me to her. I have witnessed how she lives every aspect of her life that way. Mary is a total giver. She makes me and everyone she encounters feel better just being in her presence.

BEST MAN: You know, she sounds a lot like her new husband, except that business about Mary’s passing skills during a game of hoops. When it came to Nick and me, fans at our games never, ever fell asleep, because they were afraid of getting hit by a pass!

On the other hand, Nick was tenacious on the court and never gave up. Remember that game where we came back from ten down? Nick hit a jumper at the buzzer to pull off a great win.

He was just as tenacious in his pursuit of Mary. He knew she was a winner the first time he met her. And you know what, Nick is a winner. He’s a man of integrity and honor. We live in times that have a need for those virtues more than ever.

This relationship is truly a slam dunk!

MAID OF HONOR: I agree, Nick models those virtues and is the perfect match for my friend, Mary Sue Anderson.

TOGETHER: Would you all join us in raising your glass to honor Mr. and Mrs. Nick Smith. Theirs’ is a relationship born on a basketball court and made in heaven! Cheers!

To recap, if you have a very shy toaster, or if you have too many people you feel compelled to make a toast, consider a joint wedding toast to save time and make for a livelier experience.