“I have to give a toast. HELP!”

Each spring and early summer, I receive something like the above from anxious soon-to-be party orators. The joyous celebrations that accompany the season — commencement parties, summer weddings, family reunions, etc. — are also accompanied by apprehensiveness about the pressure-packed toast.

So as a Public Service Announcement of sorts, I thought I would share a few nuggets for those of you who will be walking in those shoes (or strappy sandals) this summer. Salud!

First of all, let yourself off the hook.
Though it may not feel like it, this speaking gig is a breeze. How? If you crush it, everyone will think you’re remarkable and adore you. If you get nervous and fumble, everyone will think you’re remarkable and adore you. You literally can do no wrong, because this speaking opportunity ultimately has nothing to do with you — it’s all about the happy couple! You’re just the vessel for a message of celebration. So, stress or don’t stress; get nervous or don’t get nervous; overprepare or don’t overprepare — no matter what, you’re going to do an amazing job because your only job is to focus on the people you love (who just so happen to be getting married!). 

There is one exception to the above: saying something truly offensive. There is all the distance in the world between some good-natured roasting and material that feels hurtful, crude, or cruel. So steer well clear of being remembered for all the wrong reasons. Here’s a great tool to ensure your content won’t win you enemies: test it first! Share it with someone you trust and get their honest opinion. If no one is available or if you are wedded (no pun intended) to the idea of keeping your toast a surprise, then test it by both reading it silently and speaking it out loud. Better yet, have voice software speak it to you. If it sounds dicey coming out of the computer, it will too coming out of your mouth. Scrap it.

Change bad habits using your body, not just your brain.
If you know you have a habit that undermines you — maybe you speak too quickly when nervous, for example — use kinesthetic tools to practice and then perform better. Speaking is a physical activity, so you need to use a physical approach to improve it. For example, if you speak too quickly, don’t just remind yourself to “slow down”; practice speaking your toast while walking on a balance beam, and speak your words as slowly as you move your feet. Or if you struggle to maintain eye contact, don’t try to “scan the room”; practice with a couple friends and throw a ball back and forth as you deliver the speech – looking at them directly to ensure they’re prepared to catch your throws. These exercises rely on embodied cognition and are two examples from a whole series I developed for speakers to improve performance in high stakes situations. Even though your toast is not a high-stakes situation (as you now know from above!), it can feel that way in the days and weeks leading up. So if bad habits are bringing you down, change how you’re trying to change them! It hasn’t worked; time to try something new.

 “Write” your toast by talking.
Consider crafting your speech or toast by speaking. Scrap the pencil, set aside the keyboard, and do an exercise I created called Outloud Drafting. Here’s how it works. Instead of sitting and babysitting your Writer’s Block, stand up, walk around, and answer some self-directed questions to get your ideas flowing. Answer aloud prompts like these: “What is something about the bride/groom that I know better than anyone else?” or “If I want everyone in the room to remember one thing about this toast, what would it be?” Get the ideas flowing by speaking, then write some bullet points down to capture them. This approach makes procrastination easier to overcome, cuts to the heart of the matter quickly, helps internalize the ideas without focusing on memorization; and phrases ideas in spoken vernacular rather than written (you’ll sound like you’re talking, not reciting).

The longer it is, the better it needs to be.
Remember: you are not the main act of the wedding. So focus on the best of the best of your material. If it’s anything less than heartfelt or hilarious or heroic, perhaps it doesn’t need to be included.

Don’t take that guidance to the extreme though—there is such a thing as a too-short toast. If you merely say, “Let’s raise a glass to the happy couple,” you have not done your job adequately. The event planner, singer, or cake baker could all say that same thing. So, lose the generic comments — they have no place at your dear ones’ celebration.

Make your preparation a tech-free zone.
It might feel tempting to enlist a GPT in your process—don’t. Though AI tools will certainly help you write faster (and potentially better), this opportunity calls for all of the rare, rich, gorgeous, humane idiosyncrasy that is uniquely you. If the couple wanted a computer to toast them, they could have saved the catering fee for your seat!

Cheers,
Michael Chad Hoeppner