Speeches guides
Toasts and tributes for weddings, retirements, memorials — the moments where you have to speak and don't want to wing it.
Writing a wedding toast that lands without being saccharine. Speaking at a retirement that does justice to the career. The memorial speech when you weren't sure you could speak at all.
Quick answers to more speeches questions — each with the tool that does the heavy lifting.
How to Give a Toast When You Barely Know the Person Being Toasted
You've been asked to toast someone you don't really know. Pretending otherwise is the trap. Five steps for a short, honest, well-received toast that doesn't try to fake closeness.
- Stop pretending you know them better than you do
- Lean into the perspective the short relationship makes possible
- Borrow stories honestly, with attribution
- Keep it short — under ninety seconds is your friend
- Know when the request itself was a mismatch
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How to Write a Maid of Honor Speech That Doesn't Bomb
The maid of honor speech that lands isn't the one with the most stories or the cleverest line — it's the one that picks the right single moment and lets it do the work. Five steps for a speech the room will remember.
- Open with a specific moment, not a tribute
- Choose one story, not five
- Land it on the partner, not just on her
- Time it — four minutes is the right answer, six is the maximum
- Know what makes a maid of honor speech actually bomb
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How to Write a Retirement Speech for Someone You Actually Like
Most retirement speeches sound like the speaker pulled a template off the company intranet. The ones that land are the ones where the speaker actually liked the person leaving. Five steps for getting the affection into the speech.
- Resist the career retrospective
- Pick the moment that captures who she was to work alongside
- Don't elegize someone who's still alive
- End with what she made possible, not what's ending
- Know when the retirement speech has become about the institution, not the person
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The Best Man Speech That Lands Without Trying Too Hard
The trying-too-hard tell in a best man speech is opening with a joke. Five steps for a speech that gets laughs without chasing them, and that the groom remembers for the right reasons.
- Resist opening with a joke
- Pick stories that make him look human, not stories that make you look funny
- Two-thirds about him, one-third about the partner
- End with a toast, not a punchline
- Know when 'best man speech' has stopped being about the wedding
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What to Say at a Memorial Service When You're Not a Writer
You don't have to be a writer to speak at a memorial. You have to be honest, brief, and present. Five steps for finding what to say when the assignment is bigger than your usual register.
- You don't have to be a writer — you have to be honest and brief
- Tell one specific true story
- Don't try to summarize their whole life
- The shape that works: small moment, what it told you about them, how their absence changes things
- Permission to decline if you can't do this right now — and permission to be imperfect if you can
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