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Are Best Man Speeches Always Better than Maid of Honor Speeches

Biggskip

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With the pending nuptials of my best friend next weekend I was thinking about the various speeches I've heard at weddings over the years and a very obvious pattern emerged. It would seem to my mind that Best Man speeches are always better than Maid of Honor speeches.

Your typical Best Man speech will playfully, but tastefully, tease the Groom about some of his shortcomings, while reassuring him that he is still a great guy. Then the speech usually takes a turn where the Best Man tells everybody how lucky the Groom is. That even though he's a great guy, the woman that he's gonna marry is way better than he is, and the Groom is lucky to have snagged such a wonderful woman to spend the rest of his life with. This leaves the Groom feeling good about his choice of spouse and leaves the Bride feeling great because she just got complimented several times.

On the other hand, the typical Maid of Honor speech usually starts out with the MoH telling the audience a few humorous(less) anecdotes involving her and the bride in order to demonstrate her long standing rapport with the Bride (as if we didn't already know this given that she was selected to be the MoH). Usually these stories are only funny to her and the Bride but the audience plays along out of courtesy. Then she will turn her attention to the Groom where she typically makes some sort threat about how he needs to treat the Bride well...OR ELSE.

Anybody have similar experiences?
 

Don Carlos

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tl;dr

But whatever you said, I'm sure I agree -- if only for the fact that chicks just aren't that funny.
 

acidboy

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most (like 99%) of maid of honor speeches I've heard sounds like some inside joke between the bride and her closest friends, added with giggles.
 

Davidko19

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provided your best man doesnt get completely wasted and keeps it clean, brief and meaningful with a few funny quips, this almost always
 

giraffe lookout

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I'm not sure I recall every hearing a maid-of-honor speech. That doesn't mean I haven't been there for one; I just don't remember it.
 

alliswell

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^^ with a subtext of 'will I ever get married?'.
 

Piobaire

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Originally Posted by giraffe lookout
I'm not sure I recall every hearing a maid-of-honor speech. That doesn't mean I haven't been there for one; I just don't remember it.

This.

Is this a recent development?
 

ter1413

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best man speeches-funny/witty
maid of honor speeches-touching/emotional
 

Thomas

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Part of it is that most women are less-inclined to speak to larger crowds than men (taking into account various aspects of dominance in a speaking role, etc,), but I think that a bigger part of it is that they dare not open up any sort of Pandora's box on Her Special Day. Ironically, the MoH is most likely to know all the deep, dark, and dirty secrets of the bride, and has to absolutely avoid every last one of them.

The best man, though, is free to chat about the time they went to Mexico to take part in the pony show, cause they're guys and can get away with it.
 

Master-Classter

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I did a good proper roast, no holds barred at the bachelor party.
then did a feel good short speech at teh wedding. keep it nice, keep it short, and remember everyone's hungry, wants to dance, and still has another 5 speeches to listen to.
 

Douglas

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In general, neither are very good, but I will agree that the maid of honor speeches are generally worse. However, remember that we receive these things differently, so perhaps the brides are just totally fine or moved or happy with that sort of speech even though we're like WTF?

The worst ever are the ones where the maid of honor talks on and on about how when they were little they pictured their wedding day and how perfect it was going to be and how it was their ultimate dream in life to have a perfect princess wedding etc etc etc. One girl even talked about how when they were in COLLEGE they would stay up late making plans for their big perfect day.

Unwittingly, what these girls were saying was that today is it - the biggest and best and most important day of your life. This is the peak, and by inference it's all downhill from here. ****, by the time of the toasts it's 75% over. Enjoy the last few hours of awesome in your life, ladies, cuz this is the end.
 

Piobaire

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Since we're sort of on this topic, wtf is up with the bride at bachelorette bar crawls, wearing a shirt they've hand written "S*ck and F*ck for a buck"? I just don't get that.
 

Thomas

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Originally Posted by Douglas
(...) The worst ever are the ones where the maid of honor talks on and on about how when they were little they pictured their wedding day and how perfect it was going to be and how it was their ultimate dream in life to have a perfect princess wedding etc etc etc. One girl even talked about how when they were in COLLEGE they would stay up late making plans for their big perfect day. Unwittingly, what these girls were saying was that today is it - the biggest and best and most important day of your life. This is the peak, and by inference it's all downhill from here. ****, by the time of the toasts it's 75% over. Enjoy the last few hours of awesome in your life, ladies, cuz this is the end.
eugh. Kinda tells me that before the wedding, she was a Bridezilla, and afterward she'll be a perpetually disappointed shrew. Makes me wanna offer my condolences to the groom, actually.
 

Biggskip

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Originally Posted by Douglas
In general, neither are very good, but I will agree that the maid of honor speeches are generally worse. However, remember that we receive these things differently, so perhaps the brides are just totally fine or moved or happy with that sort of speech even though we're like WTF?

I guess my main issue is that the Best Man seems to realize that the whole reason that everybody is in the room is that we are celebrating the union of two people, whereas the MoH seems to barley acknowledge that anybody other than her and the Bride are even in the room.
 

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