The big day is here! How to make sure your father of the bride speech goes to plan

So the big day is hear and you've written, prepared and practiced your speech so you know everything you have to say. With the emotion of the actual wedding overshadowing everything else - as it so rightly should - you may find by the time it gets to your speech you don't suffer nerves as you're just enjoying the celebration.

However, if you do think you'll suffer from nerves then you'll probably find that sitting quietly and practicing some slow, relaxed breathes will help calm you down mentally and slow down your heart rate.

Also, it can help to visualize yourself giving your speech perfectly, imagining the feeling of having successfully delivered your speech and glowing in the pride of completing it perfectly.

Make sure you know when you're expected to speak, so that you're not taken by surprise. And when it is your turn you will usually be introduced by the best man on MC - find out who exactly. After you've been introduced stand and wait untill the applause has finished before you start.

Once speaking, try and enjoy yourself, it'll show in your speech. Don't worry if it doesn't go perfectly as everyone there will be behind you and cut you some slack - they're not expecting a professional speaker.

Ands when you've finished propose the toast and when the guests sit down, so can you.

Good luck, and if you want any more information see the links on the right hand side of this blog.

Practicing your wedding speech

Now you've licked your speech into good shape it's now time to practice, practice, practice. The more you practice the better you'll get and if you can mentally put yourself into the location of the wedding reception, all the better.

The point of practicing at this stage is twofold: first of all you want to rehearse speaking in public and getting used to projecting your voice; looking around the room to include everyone in your speech; controlling how you speak; and deep breathing to help fight nerves: second you want to internalize the speech as much as possible, without learning it parrot fashion. That means you get used to speaking about the points you've written down and the order in which they go BUT speaking to the guests rather than reading your speech - a subtle difference perhaps, but important.

You should be able to get yourself so that when you rise you actually feel a touch of nerves; don't worry about this, that will be a GOOD thing on the day. Imagine you're speaking to the guests and look around the room while you're speaking. Eventually you'll require the text of your speech less and less. At this point you should write down the main points onto a card and continue rehearsing using this alone.

Once you're comfortable with it you're ready for the big day. Don't worry, you're almost there!

Polishing the first draft of your wedding speech

Now that you have your first draft of your Father of the Bride speech, it's time to kick it into good shape. The way we're going to do this is simply to read it aloud and make sure that it is comfortable to say. While that may not sound like much sense, there is a big difference between the written word and speaking; what reads well, doesn't necessarily trip off the tongue well and so we need to transition from what we have down on paper to the spoken word now.

Since you're not actually rehearsing the speech you needn't bother standing unless you want to get some early practice in. Just read it aloud, making changes where you stumble or it sounds artificial. One easy thing to change is where we abbreviate things naturally in speech - do not becomes don't cannot becomes can't etc.

Run through your text a few times until you have something that you can read easily in words that feel like they belong to you. Once you've reached this stage your speech is complete. All you have to do now is practice delivery and you're ready for the wedding day.

I'll be back with more advice on the next stage in aday or so.

First draft of your father of the bride speech

After following the two previous posts you'll have brainstormed the ideas for the body of your speech as well as written down the top and tail - your welcome and the toast to the bride and groom.

Today you need to take out your notes and expand on the ideas you jotted down for the body of the speech. Remember that you'll be speaking, so try and write it as you speak and your speech doesn't need to go on too long as you'll lose the attention of the guests - around 2 minutes is idea, and if if is a long as 5 then you should do some trimming. Just flesh out the ideas into some kind of narrative - it doesn't need to be profound, only heartfelt. 10 or 15 minutes should be all that it takes, and once you've completed this exercise - congratulations, that is the first draft of your speech complete.

Don't worry if it's too rough and ready, we'll polish it afterwards.