Groomsman speech examples

Reggie is the only man I know who has been politely escorted out of a trampoline park. He was thirty-one at the time. He was there for a child's birthday party. The child was completely fine — the child was, in fact, watching Reggie get walked to the exit by a teenager in a lanyard.

I'm Callum, one of Reggie's groomsmen, and I've had a front-row seat to this kind of thing for about nine years.

Here is what you need to know about Reggie. He commits. There is no half measure available to him. We once played a friendly, low-stakes round of mini golf, and by the fourth hole he had a scorecard, a strategy, and a grievance. He took a practice swing on a windmill hole. There is no wind on a windmill hole. It's a fixed indoor obstacle. He accounted for the wind anyway.

And honestly, that is exactly why we all love him. Reggie does everything at full volume — the mini golf, the birthday parties, the friendships. When Reggie decides you matter to him, you find out about it, because he shows up early, stays late, and remembers the thing you mentioned once in a car park in 2019.

Mei, you are the one person I have ever seen who can get him to sit still. I don't know how you manage it, and I've stopped asking, because I don't want to break it.

I'll keep this short, because there are a few of us doing this today and I'm not the best of them.

Everyone — on your feet if you can manage it — to Reggie and Mei.

The summer we were twenty, Isaac's car broke down on a motorway at two in the morning, ninety miles from anywhere, with me asleep in the passenger seat. I woke up to find he had already pushed the car onto the hard shoulder by himself, set out the warning triangle, poured two cups of tea from a flask I didn't know he owned, and let me keep sleeping until the recovery truck came. He never woke me. He just handled it.

I'm Toby. I've been one of Isaac's closest friends since school, and I'm proud to be standing up here as one of his groomsmen.

That night is the whole of Isaac in one story. He is the person who quietly deals with the thing so that nobody else has to. He carries the heavy end of the sofa and lets you believe you helped. He texts you back the day something goes wrong, not the week after. For fifteen years he has been the friend who turns up, and he has never once made it a big deal.

For a long while I used to wonder who was carrying the heavy end for him.

And then there was Grace.

Grace, the first time I watched the two of you make dinner together, you handed him half the jobs without asking — like it was obvious, like of course he didn't have to do all of it on his own. I had never seen anyone do that for him. He looked lighter. He still does.

Isaac, you have looked after all of us for as long as I've known you. Today I get to stand here and watch someone look after you.

Raise your glasses, everyone — to Isaac and Grace.

Marco once drove four hours to help me move a single armchair. One chair. He could easily have told me to hire a van. Instead he turned up at eight in the morning with coffee and a roll of bubble wrap he'd bought specially, because that is the kind of friend Marco is — the kind who treats your small problem like it actually matters.

I'm Dev, and I've been lucky enough to call Marco a friend for eleven years, and to stand up as one of his groomsmen today.

He is generous in the way you only notice later, once you add it all up. And Lena, since he met you, he has somehow become even more himself — steadier, happier, quicker to laugh.

I won't hold the room. Some things are better said quickly.

Everyone, please raise a glass — to Marco and Lena.