Be the Best, Best Man and Make a Stunning Speech

"Unfortunately, this book does not live up to its name. It has a nice introduction that briefly explains the origins of some of the wedding traditions. This was interesting, but not really what you want the book for. Especially as the author goes on to warn you about not showing off this knowledge in your speech!

The check list of duties is long, too long I think. The best, best-man that the author advocates seems far too pushy and nosey, always getting involved in everything. Nowadays, the bride and groom sort out most of the stuff he mentions. The best advice the author gives here is actually to ask the groom what he wants doing.

When the book eventually gets to the speech bit, which is what we all want, again the advice is not terribly helpful. The pointers on public speaking amount to relaxing and breathing, which we all know anyway.

The advice on structuring the speech is standard stuff and nothing that common sense or a quick google could not produce. The same goes for researching the speech.

The book is also quite repetitive, especially on the subject of getting drunk (DON'T we are told, over and over). Flatter the bride, don't insult anyone, don't be rude, don't talk about ex-girlfriends... over and over.

The final 72 pages are dedicated to sample anecdotes, jokes, sayings, speeches, and a chapter on mixed religion weddings. That is two-fifths of the book. Which would be fine if the examples were any good, but they are not. The anecdotes are irrelevant, the jokes not funny, the sayings available from any quotation book/website, the sample speeches uninspiring (one of them is an speech example for female best men!) and the chapter on etiquette at mixed religion weddings too specialised for this general book (and, I suspect, too general for anyone actually interested in the topic).

As one of the other reviews said, thebestmanspeech.com is far more useful in that it gives you a ton of decent examples and costs about the same as this book to access.

The author likes to remind the reader that 'he has probably won more speech contests that anyone in Britain and Ireland'. He should stick to speaking and avoid writing."
~ Written on 2007-06-08

"A really interesting introduction to where all the tradition of weddings came from, and then some v good content; only "the complete best man was better" but I would say both as they take slightly different approaches and so are complimentary"
~ Written on 2006-05-06

"what an excellent book!!!!
its a stark contrast to all the other books i've looked at, it gives you much needed history of bestman duties, and it's implications on your modern duties, read it and you will be impressed!!!"
~ Written on 2003-08-17

"I bought this book in the hope that it would really help me in writing a great speech, but I was left a bit disappointed.

There's useful background information, and some good ideas, but there's better help out there for best men who want to give a funny and memorable speech.

A friend of mine gave an absolute killer speech the other month, having found a website with loads of lines from real past speeches - thebestmanspeech.com, if I remember. I wish I'd found it too!"
~ Written on 2003-05-31

"While being full of useful information, I felt that there was a lot of 'padding' material used to increase the page-count and justify the price. The structure of the book is also rather muddled and I found myself constantly hopping between chapters trying to follow a thread.

Despite this, the checklists of things to do and advice for before, during and after 'the big day' is all extremely useful. The Speech writing guide is excellent and provides solid advice for people that have never written or delivered a speech before (it saved my neck!). The book also covers some of the other roles a Best Man can be asked to carry out, including the conduction of the days events and sorting out any problems."
~ Written on 2002-08-24