Wedding speech guides by role

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Wedding speeches

Find the role you were asked to fill, open its guide, and pass the lineup builder below to the couple. The table gives every speaker a different angle, a guide and a suggested length.

Which guide is yours?

Table: wedding speech guides by role, with the angle each guide takes and our suggested length (our own suggestions, not a published range)

Role	What the guide does that the others do not	Suggested length
Best man	Five-part structure with timings and a what-not-to-say list with reasons	3 to 4 min
Maid of honor	Same shape with a warmer close, and what not to say about the couple	3 to 4 min
Father of the bride	The groom welcome and the toast, which this role has to handle and others skip	4 to 5 min
Mother of the bride	Starts with a three-sentence toast for a speaker nobody expected to speak	2 to 3 min
Father of the groom	Welcoming the bride’s family and one story about his son	4 to 5 min
Mother of the groom	A welcome-to-the-family frame, with a short toast and a full speech	2 to 3 min
Bride or groom	An ordered list of who to thank and why	2 to 3 min
Aunt, friend or cousin (role-neutral template)	A role-neutral skeleton with a time budget	1 to 2 min

These lengths are our own suggestions. They are not an overlap of published ranges, because the published ranges do not overlap. Bridebook, a UK site, gives a father of the bride 7 to 9 minutes and the mother of the groom 3 to 5. Zola puts the best man at two to five. WeddingWire says to keep any speech under five minutes. We cap every row at five to stay with WeddingWire, and we lean shorter than Bridebook because we are planning for a dinner where guests are waiting. That last part is our judgment. The words-to-minutes numbers for each row, and the full comparison with every source, are on the length calculator page.

Vintage microphone on a stand against a dark background, ready for a wedding toast or speech — Photo: Timothy Dachraoui, Unsplash

Build your speaking lineup

Tick who is speaking and set minutes for each. The total updates as you go, and the link you copy reopens the same lineup. Your choices go in the link after the # sign, so they never reach our server.

Your lineup (our estimate, 130 words per minute)
Speaker	Speaking?	Minutes	Words

Loading the lineup builder

Each speaker has their own guide in the table above. Send them the lineup link along with their role link, so they see both their slot and the page that helps them fill it.

Who to ask first, and what to send each speaker

Ask the best man and the maid of honor first. Their slots are the least flexible, and they usually need the most lead time to collect stories. Ask the hosting parents next, since a father who is paying for the dinner may expect to welcome guests. Ask anyone else last, and say plainly whether you want a full speech or a toast, because aunts and college friends often assume the longer one.

Send each person three things in one message: their minutes from the lineup, the day and time of their slot, and the link to their role guide. Add whether the microphone is handheld, which changes how they hold their notes. Order of speakers is your call. The traditional US order puts the best man first, then the maid of honor, then the hosting parents, and a running order with clock times is easy to add once the lineup is set.

Anyone not on the list should ask the couple before standing up, and it is kinder to say ahead of time whether you have an open microphone.

Draft length check

Once a speaker has a draft, they can paste it into the words to minutes calculator and compare it to their slot. At our assumed 130 words per minute, a four-minute slot is about 520 words, which is the Words column in the builder above. Read the draft aloud once with a timer, and if it runs over, cut a story rather than a sentence from every paragraph.

Printable list of wedding speech guides grouped by role with a suggested length in minutes beside each

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Pin it now and find it when you are ready to plan.

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Questions people ask

Who gives a speech at a wedding?

Usually the best man and the maid of honor, often a hosting parent, and sometimes the couple. There is no fixed rule. The couple decides, so a speaker who was not asked should check with them before picking up the microphone.

How long should a wedding speech be?

Published advice ranges from about two minutes up to nine for a UK father of the bride, depending on the role and the country. Our own suggestion is three to four minutes for the best man and maid of honor, up to five for the father of the bride, and less for everyone else. The length page has the details.

What if my role has no guide here?

Use the role-neutral template. It gives you a time budget and a skeleton you can fill in for an aunt, a cousin, a college friend or anyone else the couple asked. If you are half of the couple, the thank-you speech guide covers who to thank and in what order, which is the part most couples forget.