What wedding speeches teach us about creating good content

Weddings and speeches. We’ve all been there at some point.

We wait with anticipation when the microphone is picked up. Will it be a tear-jerking, belly-laughter type of speech? Or the entire-family history, inappropriate-content, dear-lord-please-stop-now type of speech?

This weekend just been I was at a beautiful wedding in Greytown, New Zealand. The speeches were epic. To the point. Beautiful stories. Very raw. And with the happy couple always at the centre of them. A far cry from an infamous speech at a wedding my husband attended, where the father of the groom spoke for 45 minutes and rehashed four generations on his side of the family.

It got me thinking… we can learn so much about creating great content from wedding speeches (when done well!).

Five lessons we can take from wedding speeches and apply to content creation:

1. Think about what you want to achieve

   You may be someone who just starts writing and lets it all flow out. Or you may jot down some quick bullet points of the things you want to cover. Whichever way you prefer to get started, make sure you firstly take a moment to think about the one key message the audience should take away (or three if writing something a little longer).

   Some of the best wedding speeches I’ve heard have had themes running through them that tie everything together. For example, my own bridesmaid likened me to being like a cat (long story) and that was the foundation of her speech. People remember that aspect of it. In your own content, you need to ensure your main point is very clear.

2. Think about your audience – a lot

   Ask yourself:

   • Who is my audience? What do they already know about what I’m saying – if anything?
     HOT TIP: Assume they know a whole lot less that you think they do! Especially at weddings. In-jokes are not going to be crowd pleasers.

   • How do you want the reader to feel when they’ve finished reading?

     We assume not exhausted and bored – or embarrassed? It’s okay to have a few jokes in there but ensure you’re rounding your content off with the overarching emotion you’d like to evoke. And keep it as brief a you can.

   • What do I want the reader to do once they’ve read this? (The ‘call to action’.)

     This doesn’t apply as much to weddings – other than a toast to the bride and groom. But perhaps you are wanting a round of applause for the people who pulled the big day together? Or the bridal party?

3. Make it feel like you

   The best content (and speeches) are from the heart. This doesn’t mean that you can’t have someone read it over and give you feedback. What it does mean is that you should use language you’d likely use if you were speaking out loud (don’t fancy it up) and, even when edited, it should feel ‘you’. If you struggle to get started, do some reading online and find some content you like. What does that writer do that resonates with you? Study their sentences, format and article structure.

   Then take a moment to relate it to real-life. Yup, this is another way of saying, “storytelling” – a red-hot word in the content world, but for good reason. People relate to stories. And if that story is from the heart, even better. So think about how you can bring up examples that’ll get the audience hooked.

   Tip toe verrrrry carefully around any stories that could embarrass the bride and groom in wedding speeches. A cute story about how the bride dressed up in wedding gowns when she was little? Nice. A story about how the groom nearly married his ex? Not so nice.   

4. Chunk it down

   We have very limited attention spans these days, and we’re accustomed to scanning anything we read for the key headers to get the gist of something. So assume that your reader is time-poor and make sure you use headers and sub-headers to separate your content into more easily digestible chunks.

   In a speech, people can do this too. For example, the bride at this recent wedding used ‘Seven ways I tricked him into loving me’. People look forward to the list and know how long it will be. And no – even chunking down family history into seven generations won’t work for a wedding speech. Sorry.

5. Edit it. Heeeeaps.

   Shorten it. Rearrange it. Get people to take a look and see if they can identify the main points. Even the best of writers often bury their point somewhere deep in their articles. Those sneaky main points find a way of hiding themselves unless we really concentrate on surfacing them! Reading thing aloud can be a great way to suddenly realise something is too long, doesn’t flow or simply isn’t working

   Yes, you SHOULD rehearse that wedding speech.

So, for better or worse, content creation can be very challenging (as can marriage). But with some preparation and a sprinkle of love, you can make some magical content and leave people feeling pretty darn good!