What order do wedding speeches go in

At a UK wedding the speeches run father of the bride, then groom, then best man. That is the traditional order, and it is the one to start from whatever else you change.

One rule holds it together. Every speech in that order ends by toasting a group of people, and someone from that group stands up and replies. That is why the father of the bride speech opens the afternoon, and why the best man is always last.

The traditional UK running order

Read the right-hand column downwards. The father toasts the couple, so the groom answers. Then the groom toasts the bridesmaids, which leaves the best man to reply on their behalf. After the first speech, nobody stands up without having been handed the floor by the speaker before them. Move one person and the replies stop matching the toasts.

Why the father of the bride goes first

He is the host. The bride's family traditionally paid for the wedding and sent the invitations, so the first speech is the host welcoming his guests. Plenty of couples now pay for their own wedding and the money argument has mostly gone, but the welcome still belongs at the front. Somebody has to tell the room the formal part has started, and everyone is already looking at the top table waiting for it.

Going first also means going to the most forgiving audience of the day. Nobody expects a polished performance from the father of the bride. They expect him to be proud, to wobble somewhere around the third paragraph, and to sit down having said one true thing about his daughter. Delivery counts for less in this slot than in any other. If you're in it, the opening is the part worth rehearsing, because the first thirty seconds decide whether the room settles.

Why the groom sits in the middle

The groom's speech is a reply before it is anything else. His new father-in-law has just toasted him and his wife, and you answer a toast rather than let it hang there. So he thanks the previous speaker, then works down the list: both sets of parents, the wedding party, whoever put out two hundred chairs that morning and is currently on their feet at the back.

Then comes the part that actually matters, which is what he says to the person he has just married. Most grooms handle the logistics well and rush that bit, and it's the only paragraph anyone quotes afterwards. The groom speech has to do both jobs in about five minutes.

He signs off by toasting the bridesmaids. That toast is the handover, and it gives the best man something to reply to.

So please charge your glasses to the bridesmaids, who have been up since five and have not complained once. And to Dan, who has been holding a folded piece of paper all afternoon like it might go off. The floor is yours, mate.

Why the best man closes

By the time the best man stands up, the room has eaten, had a drink, and been made to feel something by two sincere speeches. That is the easiest audience anyone gets all day, and it would be wasted on a speaker who doesn't need it. Put him on first and he's doing material to a cold room at four in the afternoon, over people still finding their seats.

He also has a reply to make, and that is where the slightly odd convention comes from. The groom has just toasted the bridesmaids, so the best man speech opens by thanking them on someone else's behalf, then gets on with the roast. And because his speech ends the formal part, the last thing the room hears before the bar reopens is a laugh and a toast to the couple. That sends everyone into the evening in the right mood.

Length is where this slot goes wrong far more often than content. Five minutes is plenty, and there are good reasons the long ones fail that have nothing to do with the jokes.

Where the bride and the maid of honour fit now

Brides and maids of honour both speak regularly at UK weddings now, and neither speech has a settled slot, which is exactly why couples end up arguing about it three weeks out.

A bride's speech usually lands in one of these places:

• At the very start, alongside the groom, as a short joint welcome before anyone has eaten. Low pressure, and it gets the couple's voices into the day early.
• Straight after her father, so her speech becomes a reply to his. Same trick the traditional order uses, and it tends to get the biggest reaction of the afternoon.
• After the groom, so the two of them speak back to back.

Avoid that last one if both speeches are sincere. Two of those in a row flatten a room, and the second speaker pays for it. Put something with jokes between them.

The maid of honour normally goes just before the best man, so the best man still closes. Some weddings put her after him. That turns her speech into a response to a comic set, and if she isn't planning on being the funny one, the earlier slot is much kinder. It also spares her following the one person in the room who has been rehearsing since March.

The mother of the bride speaks in the first slot, either instead of the father or with him. If both of them want to speak, two short speeches work far better than one long one split down the middle.

A modern order that holds up

1. Father of the bride, or mother of the bride, or both if they keep it to five minutes between them
2. Groom
3. Bride, if she is speaking and did not open with him
4. Maid of honour
5. Best man

Two best men

If two people are sharing the job, the real choice is one joint speech or two separate ones. Joint wins nearly every time. Two separate speeches means the groom gets roasted twice and the stag do gets told twice. It also means one of them has to follow the other, which is the worst job at the wedding.

A two best men speech splits the material so no story lands twice. One takes the early thank-yous, the other takes the toast, and the script marks who says each line so neither is left wondering whose turn it is. In the running order it still takes one slot, and it is still the last one.

Blended families, step-parents and a missing dad

The slots stay the same when the family shape changes, and only the speakers move. Four setups that come up constantly:

• Dad and step-dad both speak. Whoever has been in the host's role opens, and the other follows immediately. Four minutes each, agreed in advance, and neither of them ad-libs.
• Mum gives the opening speech. Same slot, same job: welcome the guests, talk about her daughter, toast the couple.
• A brother, uncle or godfather stands in. The slot keeps its duties, but the voice changes completely, and that difference is the whole speech.
• A parent has died. Whoever opens can acknowledge it in one sentence, or not at all. That is the bride's call, not the speaker's, and it should be settled long before the day.

The one thing worth protecting is the welcome. Somebody has to open the room on behalf of the family, and if nobody is briefed to do it, the meal simply ends and everyone sits there.

Write the order down and hand it over

Two more practical things. Tell the venue when the speeches start, because nobody can hear a father of the bride over plates being stacked. And make sure every speaker knows their slot by the morning of the wedding, not during the pudding. Somebody told at the last minute rushes, and you can hear it in the first thirty seconds.