Humorous Wedding Toasts

Weddings bring a variety of emotions and responses to mind. Think about it: where else can you find tears and laughter, smiles and sobs simultaneously$1 Weddings are so big, so monumental, so life-changing that they automatically elicit a ton of different emotions. Those participating in the wedding have the opportunity to both recognize the sacred in the ceremony and to lighten the mood in the reception. Funny wedding toasts alone break the mode of seriousness at the reception if the right person delivers them. When we think of humorous wedding toasts, we automatically have visions from Hollywood in mind—not Hollywood weddings, but those weddings in film that Hollywood has produced. Do you remember that silly movie Curly Sue? In the film the protagonists crash a wedding for the food, and then the protagonist volunteers to give a toast to the bride and groom, who do not know him and whom he does not know. However, he gives the generic toast which elicits laughter from the crowd and turns into one of many humorous wedding toasts on film. Move ahead 20 years and we see another example in the twenty-first century comedy Wedding Crashers. In this film two men make a life out of crashing weddings. They make toasts that crack up the audience and bring them their desired attention. However, genuinely funny wedding toasts are not those that make the audience in a theater laugh. They’re the kind that make the audience at the reception laugh. Sometimes the best man, maid of honor or whoever gives the toast will have a clever speech already made or a humorous story to share about the bride or groom. However, sometimes the toast giver has to rely on history and classic quotes to make his listeners chuckle. Take some of the classics for example: Socrates once said, “If you get a good wife, you’ll be happy. If you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.” At this point the toast giver can wish the happy couple a lifetime of happiness and an absence of philosophizing. Rita Rudner once said, “I love being married. It’s so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.” After this quote the funny wedding toast bearer can wish the happy couple a lifetime of annoyance and bliss. The wedding speech can easily become one of the many funny wedding toasts. The toast bearer simply needs to research and plan, and before he knows it, he’ll have the wedding guests laughing off their chairs.