Bride/Groom speeches at reception

JMS62415

I've never seen anyone do this at any of the weddings I've been to but maybe I'm out of the loop. Do Brides and Grooms typically give a speech at their own reception? Are you planning on giving one?

mrscomposer

We're doing thank yous.  I've never been to a wedding where the bride & groom didn't get up and thank the people who were involved in getting everything together.

JMS62415

jsangel1018 said:

We're doing thank yous.  I've never been to a wedding where the bride & groom didn't get up and thank the people who were involved in getting everything together.

I wasn't talking about thank you's. Usually you do that in the receiving line or go to the tables directly. I just meant speeches in general. I don't know. Maybe I'm overthinking this lol 

banana468

I've never seen a couple give a speech at their reception with one exception: when the groom addressed his new in laws in their native language.

AddieCake

I've never seen speeches, just generic thanks.

Alikat9614

We did table visits, but also did a thank you/welcome "speech." Really, DH just said a few words and invited everyone on to the dance floor. The only people other people who spoke (besides the DJ and DOC) were the MOH and BM, who gave toasts, not speeches.

climbingsingle

I've never seen the bride and/or groom give a speech or toast at their wedding.

emmyg65

We just stood up, said thank you, and made a toast to our family and friends.

jacques27

Typically, the groom will do a very short speech (mostly amounting to thank you) after the best man does his toast.  It's usually only about a minute long and amounts to "Thank you new bride for being awesome and marrying me, thank you parents and bridal party for loving and supporting us, and thank you everyone for joining us." 

Clearly I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist.

JMS62415

Thanks, everyone. I'm glad it's not the norm for the Bride to give a speech. I didn't want to haha

vulpiepop

I've been to 2 weddings where the bride and groom got up and did a short speech about how thankful they were, but I don't think it's the norm. I think they just thought it was easier to thank everyone via speech since there were no seating/table assignments and no receiving line in either wedding. I didn't really mind it but I would've rather they thanked me personally instead of via speech.

Jen4948

I've never seen this personally, but it could be a regional or cultural thing where the groom addresses the reception.  In some Orthodox Jewish circles sometimes the groom gives a short discussion about something in the Torah portion read that week or perhaps something in the Talmud, but as far as I know this is not done at the reception at large and actually takes place before the ceremony, with only men present.

BlueBirdMB

We didn't have other "speeches", but we did give a brief toast ourselves.  I think it was 2 or 3 sentences thanking everyone for coming.

nicole4793

I've never personally seen this, but I've heard of one couple doing it because they wanted to avoid going around to each and every table to thank everyone individually for coming. 

jenijoyk

I've only been to one wedding where the bride and/or groom DIDN'T stand up and say something. Weird - I guess it's regional? We're planning on doing it right before cutting the cake. (Literally, we're talking 30 seconds here. "Thank you, we love you, especially thank you to our wonderful parents, etc.") We're still of course planning to greet everyone during the wedding and thank them one-on-one for coming.

MyNameIsNot

I've never heard of the couple giving a speech at their own wedding.  What would they say, toast themselves?  Ick.  

I've seen couples thank people for coming occasionally, but that's rare.  I've often seen parents thank people for coming when they host the wedding.  

jenijoyk

No of course they don't toast themselves. They stand up and say, "We just wanted to thank everyone for being here, it means so much to us. We especially want to thank our wonderful parents for helping us host tonight."

It must be regional, because I would say that in the past 10 weddings I have been to, only one or maaayyybe two, have not done this.

grumbledore

I will likely be the one to say something brief at the beginning of the reception.  And it will NOT be in lieu of visiting everyone individually - that's horrifying.

theartistformerlyknownas

I've only seen one groom give a toast, and it was really awkward. We didn't do anything like that.

kla728

We plan on saying something, but it will a) be a quick thank you to our guests and not be us toasting ourselves, because that is absurd, and b) be in addition to either doing a receiving line or going to each table. I have no idea if it is regional or not, as I've only been to a handful of weddings. The idea really came from the fact that we are primarily paying for the wedding ourselves, so we are the main hosts. Perhaps it is becoming more common as more couples are paying for their own weddings? I say do it if you want and don't do it if you don't want.

jenijoyk

And yes, definitely saying a few words to the entire room is not a substitute for personally greeting everyone personally. We're doing both.