When deciding to present your father of the groom speech, you must be really dedicated to what you are doing. It is easy to be dedicated, especially if you have the common sense to understand, from your entire heart, that all of what you are doing is for your son, his love and the family members. Of course, it’s also for the guests, but the main focus is always family. After all, being a part of your own family, you naturally can know that you are doing this for yourself as well.
Know, the art of presenting wedding speeches is more than a simple art. I mean, you need so much dedication, time and efforts invested. Can it be done without such things? Yes, it can be done, but it will definitely be a lot harder. Does that need to scare you off? No, it should rather motivate you to handle it in an amazing way, to make sure all of it will be perfect.
Preparations from the first moment – other than the speech itself
In order to make sure that your father of the groom speech is on the way in a perfect plan, you must make sure that the field is ready. What I actually mean by preparing the field is that you should really make sure that there is nothing, no impediment to stand between your free time and the actual writing, editing and practicing of the speech. It’s all as simple as that. But what are the obstacles?
Destructive second opinions
There are always second opinions with wedding preparations, including your personal father of the groom wedding speech. Some people would do anything, just to make sure that you will let them speak and let them say something, decide something instead of you or simply convince you to change your first decisions. Now, it is good to stay open minded and to realize that there are a whole lot of advices that are going to be highly constructive. Still, in the same way constructivism is coming your way via some people, destructive ideas will also come. But who is the one able to decide about what to respect and what to forget? It’s definitely you!
There is a key to finding out whether it’s a destructive second opinion or not. Do you know that “funny feeling” you often get in a wide variety of situations? Isn’t it that many of these situations later turned out to be real situations with gravity and just because you have ignored that feeling you were lead to choose the wrong path, making the wrong decisions? This has happened to all of us. These are called nothing more than instincts. Our instincts are most of the time unexplainable, but still very accurate. If you sense it, listen to it. Other than that, there are situations when simple logic will reveal what you should do or what you should refuse doing. It’s also about your decisions, your mentality and the knowledge of how your family is.
Last minute rush
If you end up facing what is actually called last minute rush, then please allow me to tell you that you have probably failed big time. Last minute rush isn’t impossibility, but it’s definitely something big to keep you back from thinking logically and with a straight-forward attitude. With other words, you should know that whenever you have some time to handle certain situations, your decisions will turn out to be better. However, if there is a short period of time at hand, you are in stress and rush to decide black or white. Yes, for a man it’s important to decide, but every single decision will have consequences, depending on the gravity of it.
Traffic is also a huge barrier sometimes
If you have a car, then you definitely know what I am talking about. It’s mostly about rush hour, accidents or many places to go to. If there are alternatives as the subway or walking distance, then you should probably make use of them. However, the first factor should always be time. Why it is all about time? This happens because what we have all learned in the past couple of decades is that estimating the time in a wrong way is what causes a lot of problems and these problems have to do with organizing.
Still, there are some days when the car or the bus is definitely needed to take you around, from one place to the next, making sure that you reach every single location. If you know such days are to come, you must also think twice, because you will lose more time than you initially desired to lose. To be more specific: you might think a series of things to do will take 2 days and they might end up taking 5 days. Yes, this is where estimations can go crazy!
So, what we have seen from the above obstacles is that there are many and quite common. What is another very important factor of preparing? This is time management. What you can do is write a to-do list and make sure to include the following details:
- Things to buy
- Things to rent
- Meetings to attend
- Phone conversations
- Going from point A to point B with a vehicle or by walking
- Writing the speech
- Practicing the speech
- Looking for sources of inspiration
- Consulting with family and friends about several things
Trust me that the above to-do list is only a very short and simple version of a list that should be really long. Yes, it is all about what a father of the groom speech is, especially if you have desired high quality from the beginning. What quality you target is totally up to your personal decision!
Preparing the groom’s father speech text
The text of your speech is like the heart of your speech, but the presentation is like the soul of it. So, since you need to invest both heart and soul into this thing, you need to prepare the text and then make sure you present it accordingly.
Preparing a father of the groom speech text is something simple, if you follow the easy steps I am going to reveal in this article.
First step – a rough draft
Yes, it all starts with a rough draft. Just sit down, relax, sip a cup of coffee and think. You have an idea crossing your mind, but you are not sure if it is good enough for the speech? Write it down! You have a crazy idea? Write that one down as well! As your mind is bombing you with different normal and extreme ideas and memories, just note them all down as they come. If you are now complaining that what you have on the paper (or on the tablet/laptop) is something hectic, then it’s really good, it means you did a great job!
A draft is where everything starts from. A draft for the speech is the equivalent for what a floor plan is before building a house. Seems logical, doesn’t it? You need to have a lot of patience, though, because at first the ideas aren’t going to be organized or linked to each other at all. But if you have the patience, then you will soon be able to proceed to the next steps.
Taking the draft to a level of notes
The difference between a draft and notes is that notes are organized, simple and concise. Notes will always talk about the key ideas, in logical order, of every single aspect of the father of the groom speech. The amount of time and patience you need to “transfer” or transcribe your draft to notes that actually make sense can be more or less, depending on how your draft was written. Still, the time amount is not important, it is more important to have the notes done.
Of course, it is key to know the elements and parts of the wedding speech, before desiring to have notes. After all, if we are able to say that the notes follow a logical order and they are organized, then we must also make sure that they follow the speech structure. If we know how to make sure about it, then we have won the writing “battle”.
Playing around with the notes
Notes will enable you to write the formal, logical, organized version of the speech. This version will be fluent text, but might have missing parts or parts that later need to be removed. What we do in this step is simply expand the ideas we have brought into the notes before. If you have 2-3 words, make them become a full sentence. Obviously, you need to know about the fiver of the speech time – this means you can’t speak more than five minutes. That isn’t a lot of speaking, so you need to be smart!
It is also a good thing, if you feel like you need it, to re-write the simple note to a more professional note, and only after that you can write the flowing text. Of course, this means an extra step in the process, but if you feel this step is going to help you, then it’s definitely worth the time and the effort.
Turning it to the final version
From the above step to the final version of the speech, there is only a short distance and little efforts to be invested. I am sure that this part doesn’t need long explanations, because you will be able to handle it in a simple manner!
The ultimate tips – the presentation itself
Okay, so this is the moment you have been trained for and prepared for. How to make sure that you present the father of the groom speech as you intended, in a perfect way (or at least almost perfect way)? There are some small details, all important, to make sure you respect and take into consideration in time.
Using a mirror and using the critics and opinion of your family members is one of the hardest and best trainings, when it comes to how you will present the father of the groom speech. It is a hard and rough test to pass, I know, but you should definitely be looking forward to it as it will help you a lot. Of course, not every word of criticism is good to be respected, but many of them will reveal your own mistakes to you, so that you can make sure you change those aspects as soon as possible.
Then, you can always refer to movies, video clips and other materials that teach some wedding speech presentation techniques. All of them will teach you something, so you can’t really say that you will lose your time by watching these. After all, it’s all about collecting the good parts and forgetting the bad ones, isn’t it?
It is also a good idea if you can learn a bit of psychology and body language. I am sure you will find a lot of materials focusing on these aspects and then you are able to master them. What you will definitely need is a good attitude, courage, proper intonation of the speech text and you must show people love, respect and also the fact that you know what you are doing there, in the front of the microphone.