I always find it truly amazing just how little thought some grooms can put into certain areas of the big day. Yes, they'll have thought carefully about the honeymoon, made sure that the ushers' socks all mean something, and will have named all the tables after all their globe trotting trotting destinations, but they won't have thought for a minute about the guests. Hang on a minute, I hear you say - what about the amazing food, canapés, and bottomless flagons of wine? Yes, there is a certain amount to be said for sedating your guests into some kind of utopia, but it's a lot more pleasant and effective to just give them a good time in the first place, and that means forgetting about you for a bit.
I have recently been approached by 3 guys who would like to make a best man speech - I mean, 3 best men at the best of times is a ridiculous idea, but when they explained that the list of speakers included 2 bridesmaids, the groom , the father of the bride and then them...you can see that the groom has put no thought into this whatsoever. Well, in truth u he has, and all those thoughts centre around him. In a bid for everyone to hear how amazing he is, and also how amazing his brand new wife is, he's elected to have 5 people do the job, when 2 will do. By the time it gets to the best men, guests could have been sitting though speeches for over an hour, and they've still got the Holy Trinity to get through as well. Ridiculous.
Grooms, forget having multiple people speaking about you, it's the most self obsessed, navel gazing you could conjure up, and it only makes people think you're a bit of an idiot. Why on Earth would it take 3 people to make a best man speech? It doesn't. It's simply because the groom likes hearing about himself, and in my experience hearing about him in triplicate only highlights the fact that he's not nearly as funny and interesting as he'd like to be.
So, whilst writing your groom speech and planning the speeches part of the day, forget about you. The father of the bride talks about the bride, the groom talks about the bride, do you really need 2 bridesmaids talking about her as well? Not once in 10 years have I written a joint or triple best man speech for clients in the US. They get it. A powerful, meaningful, memorable speech is rooted in efficiency. Having multiple speakers talking about the same thing is not efficient, it's death by boredom.
