Brother of the Bride Speech: What to Say (and What to Skip)
You've known her longer than anyone in this room. Here's how to turn that into a speech that actually does justice to it.
Related: Wedding Speech Examples : real speeches across every role.
You have embarrassing stories. You have old footage nobody asked for. You watched her cry over things that don't matter now, and laugh at things she still laughs at, and become, over years, the person standing at that altar today.
The question is not whether you have material. You have more than you need. The question is which material, and what it's actually for.
The angle only you have
The groom knows her as a partner. The maid of honor knows her as a friend. Her parents know her as a daughter, and they'll probably cry no matter what they say.
You knew her as a kid. You knew her before the relationship, before the job, before she figured out who she wanted to be. That's the long view. Nobody else in that room has it.
A best friend can say "I know her so well." You can say "I knew her when." Those are different things, and the second one is more interesting.
The temptation when you're the brother is to play the sibling role: embarrassing stories, a few digs, a toast at the end. That can work. But the speeches people remember do something else with that history. They use it to show who she actually is, not just what she used to do.
What humor is actually for
The room expects you to be funny. There's a version of the brother speech that's basically a roast with a toast tacked on, and most people will accept it. But the best brother speeches don't just land jokes. They land a joke and then turn it into something real.
That's the move. The laugh makes the room warm, and then you use that warmth to say something genuine. The humor is the setup. The emotion is the point.
If you go twenty jokes and no turn, you'll get applause, but you'll leave some version of her sitting there wondering if you were ever going to say something that wasn't a bit. Most brothers are. Say something that isn't.
Choosing the story
Pick one moment that shows who she is, not just what she did. Those are different things. "She organized a charity drive in college" tells you what she did. "She was on the phone with the venue at 11pm because one volunteer couldn't make it and she didn't want to leave them short-staffed, and this was after she'd already worked twelve hours, and she thought I was asleep" tells you who she is.
The story should also show your relationship with her, not just her character in isolation. You're not a journalist profiling her. You're her brother. That context matters. The best moments come from stories where you're both in them, where your dynamic with her is visible.
If you can only find stories where she's impressive and you're observing from a distance, dig deeper. What did you actually do together? What did you fight about? What did you figure out about her that took you years to understand?
Start there.
How to handle the groom
You don't know him as well as you know her. That's fine. Say so.
Something like "I didn't know what to make of him at first" is a better opening than generic praise, because it's probably true, and because it sets up a real moment. What changed your mind? Find one specific thing. Not "he's great for her" but "he drove four hours to help her move during the week he was supposed to be on vacation." Something concrete that the room can picture.
You're not being asked to evaluate him. You're being asked to show that you see who he is, or at least that you've been paying attention. One honest, specific observation does more than a paragraph of endorsement.
What to leave out
Childhood stories she's never acknowledged publicly. The ones that would make her laugh are probably fine. The ones that would make her look at you with that specific expression are not.
Anything involving old relationships. There's no version of that joke that lands cleanly. Skip it.
Long setup stories that require the audience to know people they don't. If you need to explain who three other people are before the story makes sense, cut it.
Anything you thought of at 1am that seems hilarious. Sleep on it. Check in the morning.
Structure for a 4-5 minute speech
An opening hook. One line, not an introduction. Skip "Hi, I'm [name], the brother of the bride." Everyone knows. Start somewhere specific instead.
One paragraph on the sibling relationship. Not a summary of your whole history. A few sentences that give the room a feel for what it was like growing up with her. What was she like? What were you like together?
One main story. This is the center of the speech. Everything else is in service of it. Give it room.
A brief section on the groom or the two of them together. One or two specific observations. Not a résumé.
A close, aimed at her. Not a recap. Not a summary. Something direct. Then the toast.
A full example
Here's a 350-word brother of the bride speech. It's not a template to copy. It's a version of the approach above, to show how the pieces fit together.
When we were growing up, Emma had a rule: whatever she was going to do, she was going to do it the right way or not at all. This was occasionally exhausting. She once spent two weeks redoing a school project because the font didn't look right. She was twelve. The project was worth fifteen points.
I used to think this was stubbornness. I was wrong. It wasn't stubbornness. It was the thing that made her actually good at the things she cared about, and there's a real difference between those two things, and it took me longer than twelve years old to understand it.
She still does this. If she's going to do something, she's going to do it well. Which tells you something about why today is happening the way it is. She didn't get here by accident.
I'll be honest: when she first told me about Ryan, I wasn't sure what to think. I didn't know him yet. She was excited in a way I hadn't seen from her in a while, and I remember being a little skeptical, because I'm her brother and that's my job.
Then I watched them together for about six hours at a family thing. I came home and texted my wife: "He's the real thing." Not because he was charming or said the right things, but because he was just himself around her, and she was just herself around him, and they were easy together in a way I've never seen her be with anyone.
I'm not going to pretend I've known him half as long as she has. But I've seen enough to know that she got this one right.
Emma. You've been getting things right your whole life. This is no different. I love you. To Emma and Ryan.
Close
You've known her longer than anyone else in that room. That's not a burden. It's the whole point.
Say something that sounds like it. Not like a speech you found online, not like a version of what you think you're supposed to say. Something that could only come from you, about her, after all of it.
That's what people will remember.
Keep reading:
- 10 Wedding Speech Examples (And What Makes Them Work)
- How to Write a Sister of the Bride Speech
- 50 Wedding Speech Opening Lines That Actually Work
The hardest part of writing a brother's speech isn't the stories. It's finding the ones that do justice to what you actually know. SpokenVow interviews you the way a speechwriter would, pulling out the moments only you have, then builds a draft in your voice.
