{"id":7291,"date":"2013-10-07T09:05:40","date_gmt":"2013-10-07T01:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/singaporebrides.com\/articles\/?p=7291"},"modified":"2022-06-22T12:51:19","modified_gmt":"2022-06-22T04:51:19","slug":"how-i-survived-the-groom-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/singaporebrides.com\/articles\/2013\/10\/how-i-survived-the-groom-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"How I Survived The Groom&#8217;s Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i>It\u2019s known to render grooms sleepless, witless, and speechless. Fu Jinming tackled the all-important wedding speech, and lived to tell the tale.<\/i><\/p><p><b class=\"special\">P<\/b>ublic speaking terrifies me. The very thought of going up on stage to face an audience, no matter how small, never fails to induce a childish fear in me. The kind that sets my pulse on Formula One mode, and hastens last night\u2019s dinner up my throat.<\/p><div class=\"banner\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\">OA_show(5);<\/script><\/div><p>That is, if I don\u2019t blank out and forget my own name first.<\/p><p>It happened when I was nine; my teacher had somehow thought it a good idea to enter me for the school\u2019s annual Chinese storytelling competition. I turned it into a Greek tragedy.<\/p><p>Then there was the time I was asked to give a talk to the entire lecture hall back in engineering school. My friends had to cajole me out of a toilet cubicle \u2013 in another building.<\/p><p>And as luck would have it, I ended up with a job in advertising, which meant presentations on a regularly painful basis. I suspect our clients were entertained more by my sudden bout of stammering, than the campaigns I was selling them.<\/p><p>So while everyone was counting down the weeks to my wedding day, I was counting down to the day I die of a deadly affliction \u2013 the wedding speech.<\/p><p>It didn\u2019t make any sense. I\u2019m not afraid of face-to-face conversations. Not often anyways. I had even won a speechwriting competition once as a student (I did it for the prize money. And I delivered the speech drunk.)<\/p><p>Besides, this was the most important day of my life. All our relatives and friends would be there; people who would love and support me no matter what. Everybody would be rooting for me. Nobody would be judging me.<\/p><p>Right?<\/p><p>Tell that to the wreck in my mirror.<\/p><p>I kept imagining myself behind the podium, saying something I thought was funny but hearing silence in return, like something just died \u2013 my confidence, for one.<\/p><p>Or worse, I\u2019d get up there, panic, and say nothing at all.<\/p><p>Rather than let it eat at me, I decided to face my fear the only way I knew how \u2013 by over-preparing.<\/p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/singaporebrides.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Emily-Hill-Tina-Jacen-23.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><i class=\"special\">Image from <a href=\"https:\/\/singaporebrides.com\/articles\/2020\/02\/emily-hill-fivetwenty-library-tina-jacen\/\">Tina and Jacen&#8217;s Intimate Wedding at Emily Hill<\/a> by <a href=\"https:\/\/singaporebrides.com\/featured\/520-library\/\">520 Library<\/a><\/i><p>First I had to actually write the speech. So five days before the big day, I sat down, shut the door, and started with the basics:<\/p><p><i>Good evening. Thank you very much for joining J and I on our very special day.<\/i><\/p><p>That wasn\u2019t too hard. Speechwriting books would suggest that I launch into a funny anecdote at this point. Instead, I decided on brevity and went for a short two-liner that drew on an insight, one that other couples would relate to:<\/p><p><i>Make no mistake, ladies and gentlemen, you are about to witness a momentous occasion \u2013 for the first time ever, J\u2019s letting me speak first.<\/i><\/p><p>I imagined the laughter this turn-of-phrase would bring. I imagined my relief upon hearing it, and the rest of the speech started to flow, like a stream rushing unto a river.<\/p><p>I guided its meandering with a list of people to thank \u2013 colleagues, close friends, and family. I housed them into a paragraph each, and peppered them with a jokey line or two. Nothing fancy, just a few observations about my relationship with each party, bent here and there to invite a few laughs.<\/p><p>Like how grateful I was that my groomsmen took the trouble to look less handsome than me for once. How my folks weren\u2019t convinced I could wear t-shirts and jeans every day and still be gainfully employed. And how I was eternally indebted to my dad \u2013 and his wallet.<\/p><p>I then tied it up nice and tight with a segment addressing J\u2019s parents, thanking them for giving me their daughter\u2019s hand in barely passable Mandarin. That should conclude in more laughter, I thought.<\/p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/singaporebrides.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Changi-Cove-Ivan-Seah-Photography-Cindy-Stan-173.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><i class=\"special\">Image from <a href=\"https:\/\/singaporebrides.com\/articles\/2020\/05\/changi-cove-hotel-command-house-ivan-seah-photography-cindy-stan\/\">Cindy and Stan&#8217;s Stunning Wedding at Changi Cove Hotel&#8217;s Command House<\/a> by <a href=\"https:\/\/singaporebrides.com\/featured\/ivan-seah-photography\/\">Ivan Seah Photography<\/a><\/i><p><b><b>Then came the hard part.<\/b><\/b><\/p><p>Having a well-written speech was the battle half-won. The other half was where I typically become a babbling idiot. I couldn\u2019t afford to be that babbling idiot on my wedding day. That meant rehearsing till I could read my speech in my sleep.<\/p><p>Not that I was going to memorise the speech. I have trouble even remembering where I park the car at the mall, let alone 1,300 words.<\/p><p>What I tried to commit to memory, rather, was the sequence of my speech \u2013 so I always knew which part was coming up as I read it \u2013 and the manner in which I\u2019d hoped to deliver it. That meant remembering the emotions I was trying to convey in each part, as well as the sentences to pause at for effect.<\/p><p>The goal here was to know my speech well enough to make my read as natural as I possibly could. For reference, I watched YouTube clips of how stand-up comedians delivered their punch lines.<\/p><p>Then I practised, practised, practised. Every moment alone became an opportunity to rehearse. At the bus stop, in the showers, inside the toilet stall at work.<\/p><p>I would\u2019ve asked J to be my test audience, but I wanted to keep my speech a surprise. Somehow, it felt less like a chore and more like a game that way, which kept me interested.<\/p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/singaporebrides.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Rachel-Aaron-Maison-Miaja_100.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><i class=\"special\">Image from <a href=\"https:\/\/singaporebrides.com\/articles\/2020\/06\/maison-miaja-andri-tei-photography-rachel-aaron\/\">Rachel and Aaron&#8217;s Intimate and Unplugged Wedding at Maison Miaja<\/a> by <a href=\"https:\/\/singaporebrides.com\/featured\/andri-tei-photography\/\">Andri Tei Photography<\/a><\/i><p>On the day of the wedding, I saw the stage in the banquet hall and felt a familiar fear brewing. The butterflies in my stomach chewed up what little appetite I had as the dinner wore on. So I tried to drown them with a glass of red wine while waiting to be summoned to the podium. That helped.<\/p><p>I was deathly nervous. Yet this time, it felt different. I wasn\u2019t hyperventilating at the thought of my impending humiliation. Nor was I scanning the room for the quickest way out. All I did was hold J\u2019s hand. She squeezed my hand, and I knew I was going to be ok. We were going to be ok.<\/p><p>The emcee said something that I missed. The guests started clapping and I realised it was time. We walked up the stage and stood behind the podium together. I unfolded my speech, tapped on the microphone, and began: \u201cGood evening. Thank you very much for joining J and I on our very special day.\u201d<\/p><p>I arrived at the end of my first paragraph, paused at my first punch line, and waited. The audience laughed, and I heaved a mental sigh of relief. The rest was a bullet-train blur, but the applause, the laughter, and the standing ovation told me I had survived it all.<\/p><p>When it was all over the only thing I remembered, besides the smile on my face, was the one on hers. It was the one that mattered.<\/p><p><i>Click <a href=\"http:\/\/singaporebrides.com\/articles\/2013\/10\/a-writers-wedding-speech\/\">here<\/a>to read the very funny and touching speech the writer wrote for his wedding.<\/i><\/p><hr><p><i>Featured image from <a href=\"https:\/\/singaporebrides.com\/articles\/2020\/05\/hotel-fort-canning-androidsinboots-linette-joshua\/\">Linette and Joshua&#8217;s Autumn-Inspired Bohemian Wedding at Hotel Fort Canning<\/a> by <a href=\"https:\/\/singaporebrides.com\/featured\/androidsinboots\/\">Androidsinboots<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s known to render grooms sleepless, witless, and speechless. Fu Jinming tackled the all-important wedding speech, and lived to tell the tale.Public speaking terrifies me. The very thought of going&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":72948,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[136],"class_list":["post-7291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-groom-room","tag-wedding-speeches"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How I Survived The Groom&#039;s Speech - SingaporeBrides<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/singaporebrides.com\/articles\/2013\/10\/how-i-survived-the-groom-speech\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How I Survived The Groom&#039;s Speech - SingaporeBrides\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It\u2019s known to render grooms sleepless, witless, and speechless. 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