How to Write a Wedding Speech for a Friend (When You're Not in the Wedding Party)
You've been asked to say something at your friend's wedding. You're not the best man or maid of honor, just someone they trust with a microphone. Here's how to earn that trust.
Related: Wedding Toast Guide : everything you need to raise a glass with confidence.
When someone asks you to speak at their wedding and you're not in the wedding party, it means something specific. It means they thought about it. They went through their people and landed on you, not as a best man or maid of honor, not out of obligation, but because they wanted your voice in the room.
That's a real thing. Don't make it about you. But do make it personal. Those two things can coexist.
What your position actually is
You're not delivering the centerpiece speech. The best man and the maid of honor have those. They're expected to be substantial, structured, the speeches everyone photographs.
You're adding something different. You have a relationship with the couple, or with one of them, that the wedding party can't replicate. Maybe you knew them before the relationship. Maybe you knew one of them through a particular chapter of their life that predates everyone else in the room. Maybe you watched the whole thing unfold from the outside and have a perspective nobody standing at the altar has.
That's the value you're there to deliver. Not a comprehensive summary of the friendship, not a timeline of their relationship. Just the specific thing you saw from where you were standing.
What you have that nobody else does
Think about when you knew this person. What era of their life were you in?
College, when they were figuring out who they were. The years after that, when they were figuring out how to be an adult. A specific job, a specific city, a specific period when things were hard. Whatever it was, that chapter belongs to you in a way it doesn't belong to anyone else in the room.
That's what to build around. Not the whole friendship. One piece of it. The part where you were there and you paid attention.
The other thing: you might know who this person is outside the relationship. The wedding party has often only known the couple together. You might have known your friend when they were single and looking, when they were uncertain, when they talked about wanting exactly what they now have. That before and after is yours to describe, if it's true and if you can do it honestly.
The structure that works
For a friend's toast, the most reliable format is this: one story, one observation about the couple, a closing line.
Not two stories. Not a greatest-hits tour of the friendship. One story that is specific, true, and says something about who this person is as a human being. Then one real thing you've noticed about them together. Then a toast.
That's 300 words at most. Two to three minutes of actual speaking time. Long enough to feel like something, short enough to not test the room.
The stories that work are the ones that don't need much setup. If you have to explain backstory for two minutes before you get to the point, the story isn't the right story. The right story is the one where the situation is clear fast and what it reveals about your friend is immediate.
Choosing the right story
It should be specific. Not "we've had a lot of good times" but the one time, the thing that happened, the moment that stuck.
It should involve just the two of you, or a small group at most. Group stories require too much introduction: who was there, what was happening, why everyone was doing what they were doing. One-on-one stories strip that away and let you get to the thing that matters.
It should reveal something about who your friend is, not just what they did. There's a difference. "We went to Mexico and Emma got us into this underground salsa bar" is what happened. "Emma spent an hour talking to a local family she'd just met, and by the end of it they were teaching us both how to cook" is who Emma is. The second one earns a toast. The first one is just a story.
And it should be something the couple knows you're telling. If there is any version of the story that would make the person you're toasting uncomfortable in front of their new spouse's family, find a different story.
Things to leave out
Inside jokes the couple will laugh at but nobody else will understand. These create a moment between you and two people in a room of a hundred. The room goes quiet in the wrong way.
Stories that require too much context to land. You'll feel the audience drifting while you explain the background. By the time you get to the actual moment, they've stopped listening.
Anything involving an ex. Even if it's framed well. Even if it makes a good point. Just don't.
Anything the couple hasn't pre-approved. If there's a story that could go either way, funny or mortifying, touching or oversharing, ask first. "I was thinking of telling the story about X" is a quick text that saves everyone a bad moment.
A complete example
This is a 280-word speech from a close friend of the bride, neither best man nor maid of honor.
Natalie and I became friends in the way that you become friends when you're both new somewhere and don't know many people yet. We were living in the same building in Chicago, we'd run into each other getting our mail, and at some point we started getting coffee on Sunday mornings because neither of us had anything better to do.
One Sunday, this was maybe three months in, I was having a genuinely bad week. The job was wrong, the city felt too big, and I was in that specific kind of bad mood where everything is fine but nothing feels fine. And Natalie, without me saying any of that, put her coffee down and said, "Okay. What's actually going on?"
She didn't say it like a pleasantry. She said it like she actually wanted to know. And then she listened. She didn't offer solutions. She didn't redirect to something lighter. She just listened until I was done.
That's a thing Natalie does. She pays attention. She notices when you're not quite right and she doesn't look away from it.
I met Ben about a year later. And the first thing I noticed was how he looked at her when she was talking. Like he was actually listening. Like he wanted to know.
I recognized it. It's exactly what she does for the people she loves.
To Natalie and Ben, may you spend a long time listening to each other.
The story is specific to one moment. It reveals something true about who this person is. The observation about Ben follows naturally from what the story set up. The toast line ties back without being forced.
The nerves are real, but they'll pass
You were asked because someone believed you could do this. Not because you're a professional speaker. Not because you give flawless toasts. Because they trust you with the room.
The room is already rooting for you before you say anything. People at weddings want the toasts to be good. They are actively hoping you pull it off. You're not walking into a hostile situation. You're walking into a room full of people who want you to succeed.
The best thing you can do is say something true. Not something polished, not something that sounds like you practiced in front of a mirror for a week. Something true about this person, from the angle only you have.
Read it out loud before the day. More than once. At the pace you'll actually speak. That's the only preparation that matters.
Keep reading:
- A Short Wedding Toast That Lands Every Time
- Best Wedding Speech Opening Lines
- How to Not Cry During a Wedding Speech
If you want help getting the structure right, SpokenVow starts with an interview: specific questions about your friend, the stories that matter, and what you actually want to say. The speech that comes out is built from your answers, not from a template.
