GIVING A WEDDING TOAST
It’s an absolute certainty that you will need to give a “Wedding Toast” to a bride or groom at least once in your life. Nerve-racking for anyone. More nerve-racking for a person who stutters.
Let’s practice giving an impromptu “Toast” to someone special in your life.
MEETING ACTIVITY
Everyone Gives an Impromptu Toast
A toast is to offer congratulation, good wishes, appreciation, remembrance, etc. to someone who has meant a lot to you.
To make it easier for people to give an impromptu toast without a script, everyone will write down 3 to 4 questions as talking prompts on a notecard. In the improvised toast, you will simply answer the questions out loud in front
of the group. That’s your impromptu toast.
For example, suppose I am giving a Wedding Toast to a college friend of mind. I would write down the following four questions as talking prompts:
- When did I first meet name and what do I remember about that experience?
- Why has this person been so meaningful to me?
- What do I admire most about this person?
- Why am I so happy this person has found the love of their life?
The beauty of using talking prompts is that your speech will come across as more genuine, natural, and possibly more heartfelt. Plus, by using talking prompts to focus your speech, it will simplify the difficult task of writing down
a speech.
Meeting Tips:
- Hand out notecards and pens to everyone.
- Explain how everyone will be asked to give a toast to acknowledge and celebrate someone special in their life.
- Attendees will have about 2-mins to give their short toast.
- Give attendees a few minutes to write down their question prompts and gather their thoughts for how best to answer the questions on the card
- Ask for a volunteer to start. (That volunteer may be you.)
- After everyone has given their short toast, facilitate group conversation about the experience.
- Be sure to ask if they can see how using question prompts might help them when asked to talk on conference calls at work.