“The Toast”
In class on Monday March 30th my group gave our first group presentation.
To prepare for a “toast” we had to John and Beverly we met multiple time to organize and discuss what we were going to say in our part of the speech. We randomly flipped a coin to see what roles we were going to play in our speeches. I was given the role of the best man. I feel that I got the easy end of the stick (sorry broc) because I can relate more to what a best man would say instead of what broc had to do in which his case he was the father of the bride.
How I myself prepared for the speech was at first I sat down and watched some youtube videos on best man speeches. After that I then started brainstorming ideas of what I was going to say. I figured that I would talk about past events and how John and I grew up together and decided to make up some cheesy stories about our college days and the road trip we took to Las Vegas. I then prepared by practicing in front of a mirror timing myself so I had a reasonable time, that I didn’t go too long or too short. I feel like practicing in front of a mirror is one of the best ways to practice a speech because you can see youselfand how you move and give gestures, it also helps with eye contact as well.
I feel that our speech went really well. We tried using props but all we could get were coffee cups for our “champagne” instead of plastic flutes like the group that went today. (very nice job to that group by the way) I did feel like that there were a few down falls to our speech. For instance I feel that our transitions could have been a little better, as well as the eye contact to the “guests” instead of just looking at the screen to “john and beverly.” I did feel as though we did have a lot of positives to our speech. For instance we tried adding humor to our speech to keep the audience entertained. Also, we budgeted our time very wisely so we were in the correct time limit.
Overall I had a lot of fun with this speech, and felt like we did a very nice job on it…showing that we got a pretty good grade on it that is. I also feel like the audience enjoyed it as well.
3:40 am - 4-2-2009
It is great that your audience enjoyed it brainstorming is very important in preparing to give a speech like a Best Man speech as you need to ensure that your speech combines the right blend of humor and sincerity, along with knowing who to thank and when to do it.