How weddings have changed over the decades! From a handful to 400-500 invited guests; one-two to six-eight marriage ceremony members; a fairly easy wedding car to expensive and large wedding cars; three course meals to 6 course meals; one-three live bands; simple attire to colorful and flamboyant dresses, suits and attire and off-the-cuff to well-prepared wedding speeches.
Talking about the latter, wedding speeches are still an important part of a marriage and guests do look forward to hearing them, discussing them before, during and indeed after they’ve been delivered.
We are all aware of father of the groom speech delivered before the meal, in the meal after the meal, however it’s of the strong opinion that the wedding speeches should be delivered following the meal. I understand that for most bridal party speakers i.e. Father in the Bride Speech, Father with the Groom Speech, Bride Speech, Groom Speech and Bestman Speech (5 main speakers), they will prefer to contain the wedding speeches prior to the meal, to allow them to enjoy their meal (a lot of them are paying for it!). However, it is all about the invited guests and how many of them (and even the wedding ceremony venue staff) would choose the marriage speeches being delivered as soon as the meal for most reasons, many of which include:
The invited guests are already fed and watered and aren’t playing wedding speeches before eating anything (at least of food, which could be prior to meal, though weddings today do provide light snacks upon arrival at the wedding venue)
Food could be cooked and served in the agreed time (introduce the wedding speeches prior to meal along with their could be a delay of A quarter-hour to 1.5 hours, driving living rooms staff crazy attempting to keep food freshly cooked, presentable and edible)
The wedding ceremony speeches work as the transition from your meal for the dancing (with nothing happening after the meal, people are expecting ‘a few words’ to get shared concerning the Bride & Groom after which it they know they can wake up, move, come out, go for a walk, visit the bar…)
It can be difficult for folks in the Bride & Groom to speak in public, since most of them would not be used than it. So, they can, whenever they so wished, speak ahead of the / their meal.
There should nevertheless be some sort of formal wedding speech(es) following the meal…
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