Hear, hear! Weaving some magic into your wedding speech

Okay. You’ve read our article on how to deliver a great wedding speech. Maybe you’ve already put the framework together, or perhaps you haven’t even got that notepad and pen out yet. Either way, you’re looking for the perfect joke, quotation, poem, one-liner or inspirational saying, to add a bit of dazzle to your moment in the spotlight. Look no further! We’ve divided our favourites into the following sections: Toasts; Sentimental Quotations; Witty One-Liners; and Jokes.

Photo courtesy of¬† Robert Francoeur

Toasts Cheers!

Toasts are typically short, heartfelt wishes, such as:

Let us toast the health of the bride; let us toast the health of the groom; let us toast the person that tied; let us toast every guest in the room
Here’s to the groom, a man who keeps his head though he loses his heart
My greatest wish for the two of you is that, through the years, your love for each other will so deepen and grow, that years from now you will look back on this day, your wedding day, as the day you loved each other the least
Here’s to matrimony, the high sea for which no compass has yet been invented!
May the roof above you never fall in and may you both never fall out
To the lamp of love: may in burn brightest in the darkest hours and never flicker in the winds of trial
May your love be like the misty rain, gentle coming in but flooding the river

Sentimental quotations Well said!

Pepper your speech or toast with one of the following warm and fuzzy statements:

Love is life - Leo Tolstoy
Love is a flower which turns into fruit at marriage - Finnish Proverb
Love is friendship set to music - Anonymous
Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination - Voltaire
Life without love is like a tree without blossom and fruit - Khalil Gibran
Marriage is a mistake every man should make - George Jessel
A man without a wife is like a vase without flowers - African Proverb
Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same - Emily Bronte
There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved - Georges Sands
They do not love that do not show their love - William Shakespeare
Only choose in marriage a man whom you would choose as a friend if he were a woman - Joseph Joubert
We have the greatest pre-nuptial agreement in the world: it’s called love - Gene Perret
When love reigns, the impossible may be attained - Indian proverb
Without love, the world itself would not survive - Lope de Vega
The highest happiness on earth is marriage - William Lyon Phelps
To get the full value of joy, you must have someone to divide it with - Mark Twain
To love someone deeply gives you strength. Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage - Lao Tzu
In so much as love grows in you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul - St. Augustine

Or some of these longer ones:

Don’t marry the person you think you can live with; marry only the individual you think you can’t live without - James C. Dobson
What a happy and holy fashion it is that those who love one another should rest on the same pillow. - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Marriage is like a golden ring in a chain, whose beginning is a glance and whose ending is eternity - Kahlil Gibran
Marriage is like a pair of shears often times working in opposite directions, but punishing anyone that comes between them - Sydney Smith
Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years. - Simone Signoret
Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate. - Barnett R. Brickner
A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person. - Mignon McLaughlin
Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
We never live so intensely as when we love strongly. We never realize ourselves so vividly as when we are in full glow of love for others - Walter Rauschenbusch
There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage - Martin Luther
Come, let’s be a comfortable couple and take care of each other! How glad we shall be, that we have somebody we are fond of always, to talk to and sit with. - Charles Dickens
When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. - Nora Ephron (When Harry Met Sally)
When the one man loves the one woman and the one woman loves the one man, the very angels desert heaven and come and sit in that house and sing for joy. - The Brahma Sutras
Happy marriages begin when we marry the ones we love, and they blossom when we love the ones we marry ~ Tom Mullen

Or one of these:

To keep your marriage brimming, With love in the loving cup, Whenever you’re wrong, admit it; Whenever you’re right, shut up. - Ogden Nash
If two stand shoulder to shoulder against the gods, Happy together, the gods themselves are helpless Against them while they stand so. - Maxwell Anderson
I dreamed of a wedding of elaborate elegance, A church filled with family and friends. I asked him what kind of a wedding he wished for, He said one that would make me his wife. - Author Unknown

Jokes A bag of laughs

A few well-timed jokes can add some spice to a wedding speech. Try some of these out:

A businessman boarded a plane to find, sitting next to him, an elegant woman wearing the largest, most stunning diamond ring he had ever seen. He asked her about it. “This is the Johnson diamond,” she said. “It is beautiful, but there is a terrible curse that goes with it.” “What’s the curse?” the man asked. “Mr. Johnson.”
Adam and Eve had an ideal marriage. He didn’t have to hear about all the men she could have married, and she didn’t have to hear about the way his mother cooked.
Two cannibals just finished a big meal and one turns to the other while rubbing his stomach with his fist and says, “You know, I just ate my mother-in-law, and she still doesn’t agree with me!”
I bought my wife a new car. She called and said, ‘There’s water in the carburetor’. I said, ‘Where’s the car?’ She said, ‘In the lake’.
I love being married. It’s so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.
Always get married early in the morning. That way, if it doesn’t work out, you haven’t wasted a whole day.
A husband said to his wife ‘No, I don’t hate your relatives. In fact, I like your mother-in-law better than I like mine’

Witty one-liners On a lighter note

Used sparingly, these saucy quips can wake up a sleepy audience:

A wedding ring is sort of a tourniquet worn on one’s finger to stop circulation
A bachelor is a man who never makes the same mistake once.
Compromise: An amiable arrangement between husband and wife whereby they agree to let her have her own way.
“I am” is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that “I do” is the longest?
In my house I’m the boss, my wife is just the decision maker.
It’s a funny thing that when a man hasn’t anything on earth to worry about, he goes off and gets married.
Love is grand; divorce a hundred grand.
Marriage is the institution where the woman loses her the name and the man his solvency.
Marriage is a three-ring circus: engagement ring, wedding ring and suffering
Marriage isn’t a word. It is a sentence.
Marriage is nature’s way of keeping us from fighting with strangers.
My wife says I never listen to her. At least I think that’s what she said.
My wife suggested a book for me to read to enhance our relationship. It’s titled ‘Women are from Venus, Men are Wrong’
My husband said he needed more space. So I locked him outside.
Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays.
The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret.
There’s a way of transferring funds that is even faster than electronic banking. It’s called marriage.
You know what I did before I married? Anything I wanted to.
We always hold hands. If I let go, she shops.
I married Miss Right. I just didn’t know her first name was Always.
I haven’t spoken to my wife in 18 months - I don’t like to interrupt her.
If marriage were outlawed, only outlaws would have in-laws.
Just think, if it weren’t for marriage, men would go through life thinking they had no faults at all.
Wedding rings: the world’s smallest handcuffs.

And from some of our favourite cynics:

A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers. - Ruth Bell Graham
A dress that zips up the back will bring a husband and wife together - James H. Boren
A man in love is incomplete until he has married. Then he’s finished. - Zsa Zsa Gabor
A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married. - H.L. Mencken
All marriages are happy. It’s the living together afterward that causes all the trouble - Raymond Hull
Any married man should forget his mistakes - no use two people remembering the same thing. - Duane Dewel
Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn’t they’d be married too. - H.L. Mencken
He’s the kind of man a woman would have to marry to get rid of - Mae West
I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury - Groucho Marx
I have learned that only two things are necessary to keep one’s wife happy. First, let her think she’s having her own way. And second, let her have it. - Lyndon B. Johnson
Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards - Benjamin Franklin
Like good wine, marriage gets better with age - once you learn to keep a cork in it. - Gene Perret
Never marry for money. Ye’ll borrow it cheaper - Scottish Proverb
Our marriage has always been a 50-50 proposition - with the possible exception of closet space. - Gene Perret
The most dangerous food is wedding cake - American Proverb
The proper basis for a marriage is mutual misunderstanding - Oscar Wilde
The bonds of matrimony are like any other bonds - they mature slowly. - Peter De Vries
The best way to remember your wife’s birthday is to forget it once. - H.V. Prochnow
The concept of two people living together for 25 years without a serious dispute suggests a lack of spirit only to be admired in sheep. - A.P. Herbert
When a man opens the car door for his wife, it’s either a new car or a new wife. - Prince Philip

Speeches

How to Deliver a Great Wedding Speech

The Father of the Bride's Speech

The Groom's Speech

The Bride's Speech

The Best Man's Speech

Jokes and One-Liners for your Wedding Speech or Toast