Top 5 tips for the best wedding speech from a communication expert

Weddings are all fun and games until the throat-tightening section of speeches arrives. Suddenly your mouth is bone dry and can't even remember your own name. Sara is the founder of Fluence, a specialist communication coaching service, supporting clients to excel in all forms of public and personal speaking engagements – and she's here to help your speech go from zero to hero!

Here are Sara's top tips for delivering the best wedding speech.

Be Realistic
Be kind to yourself and acknowledge weddings are a challenging speaking environment. Aim for good enough, rather than a perfect speech; adding additional pressure to deliver a perfect speech often doesn't help our communication skills. Keep in mind that this is a room full of your friends and family, this should be the safest room on earth for you to mess up in.

Voice Projection
Some of us will be skilled in using microphones, but many of us wouldn't have used one in a public speaking context. Practise holding a microphone – this might sound silly but stick with us! If you've got a karaoke machine then great, if not, hunt in the kids toy boy, grab your bride-to-be's hairbrush or find a water bottle. Choose which hand you will hold the microphone in, so it doesn't feel as strange on the day, and experiment with how you will hold it in relation to your body – ideally angled away from your mouth. Then practise your speech by talking into the microphone. We often forget to talk into the microphone or flail our arms around when we are nervous, thus smacking the microphone and causing ruckus.

Eye Contact
Some of us will feel more comfortable directing our speech towards our partner or by choosing a 'safe' person in the audience. Others can connect with the wider audience, making eye contact with several guests. All options will work for a wedding speech – you decide which one feels right for you.

A Strong Narrative
A strong narrative structure is ordered and organised, with relevant detail and information. Wedding speeches require a clear narrative structure to help your audience easily listen and follow the story. This could be a story around how the couple met or early memories of the groom and bride, whatever feels right but just remember to keep it on track!

Define Your Strengths and Weaknesses
We all have different communication strengths; knowing what your strengths are means you can use more of the skills you are good at and learn strategies to improve other areas. Strengths might include your ability to use expression and emotion in your voice; using strong projection, pacing, using facial expressions, and gestures alongside your speech are brilliant examples of how you can keep the audience engaged.

For more information on how you can improve your communication skills, please visit https://fluencecomms.co.uk
(Added by Isabelle Chamberlain, Editorial Assistant)