How weddings have changed over the decades! From your handful to 400-500 invited guests; one-two to six-eight wedding ceremony members; an easy wedding car to expensive and large wedding cars; three course meals to 6 course meals; one to three live bands; simple attire to colorful and flamboyant dresses, suits and attire and off-the-cuff to well-prepared wedding speeches.
While we’re talking about the second, wedding speeches are still a fundamental part of being married and guests do look ahead to hearing them, talking about them before, during as well as after they’ve been delivered.
We know of father of the bride speech delivered prior to meal, during the meal and after the meal, yet it’s of an strong opinion that the wedding speeches must be delivered as soon as the meal. I know that for several bridal party speakers i.e. Father in the Bride Speech, Father in the Groom Speech, Bride Speech, Groom Speech and Bestman Speech (the 5 main speakers), they will want to hold the wedding speeches before the meal, to enable them to enjoy their meal (a lot of them are paying for it!). However, it’s all about the invited guests and the way many of them (and indeed the wedding ceremony venue staff) would prefer the wedding ceremony speeches to be delivered after the meal for many reasons, some of which include:
The invited guests happen to be fed and watered and aren’t listening to wedding speeches before eating anything (at least of food, which may be so prior to meal, though weddings today do provide light snacks upon arrival with the wedding venue)
Food can be cooked and served with the agreed time (introduce the wedding speeches prior to meal along with their could be a delay of Quarter-hour to 1.5 hours, driving the kitchen staff crazy always keeping food freshly cooked, presentable and edible)
Wedding ceremony speeches behave as the transition through the meal for the dancing (without a penny happening following your meal, people are expecting ‘a few words’ to get shared in regards to the Bride & Groom and they are fully aware they could get up, move about, have a break, go for a walk, navigate to the bar…)
It can be hard for folks of the Bride & Groom to talk in public areas, as most of them would not be used than it. So, they could, should they so wished, speak ahead of the / their meal.
There should nevertheless be some kind of formal speech(es) as soon as the meal…
For more information about groom speech visit our new resource.