Wedding post 6 - The speech

Yep i'm back with another wedding related post. I was going to make this post the 'festival' one but decided to do one about the speeches so a word of warning before you read on, this is maybe a more somber post than you may have been expecting.

Once everyone had descended from the beach bus it was go, go, go in order to keep to time as we were 1/2 an hour late in getting back to the hotel and the food was due to be served in 10 mins. Yikes! After a quick 10 minute breather the guests were swiftly ushered into the marquee or, in keeping with the festival spirit - 'the food tent'.

Before the wedding guests were given a selection of menu choices on the back of their invites.
They could choose from 3 starter options and 4 main options:

You'll notice desert was not an option, this was because we thought as there was going to be an absolute ton of cake we'd serve that as desert.
Not in our wildest dreams had Dave and I thought the weather would be tropical on that day, and even though we'd been hoping for sun 'heat' wasn't something we'd exactly planned for as that would have been tempting fate. So Dinner or 'the wedding breakfast' as is officially known was a bit out of kilter, given our menu wasn't exactly hot weather friendly. Put it this way...if people had known they'd be sitting in a 30+ degree marquee in the blazing sunshine, I don't think 'leg of lamb' would have been their first choice.

Our plan was to have the speeches before the meal as knowing how much anxiety having to give a speech causes, it made sense to get them done and out the way so everyone could relax. Alas, this was not meant to be since our late arrival back from the beach. Instead we had to opt for a quickly thought up plan B and give the speeches whilst the cake was being dished out.
There were 5 in total and although that may seem like quite a lot, they were mostly quite short.

My dad, who like me was dreading doing it, went first -

He was followed by the two best men Dave's brother Tom and his good friend Samir. 

Then Dave gave a short groom speech (which lucky for him i can't find a picture of) and lastly came mine. I guess its not traditional for the bride to give a speech and although i'm not really one for sticking to tradition, this one tradition which as a bride I was extremely glad to follow, as it meant I had a legitimate excuse to dodge a daunting task.
'So why did you do one?' I hear you ask. Well I thought I would share a cut down version of my  speech with you, so have a read and it will answer your question: 

'When we first started to organise the wedding around May time last year, one of the things I said to myself is ‘thank god I don’t have to do a speech and I can leave that bit up to Dave, my dad and the best men’. I hate doing speeches and I was very clear in my head that I wasn’t going to do one…. until something happened that changed my mind.

Now most of you here today will know that my mum passed away fairly unexpectedly on boxing day last year. It was a huge shock to my dad, my sister and me, as well as my mum’s sister and family and we are all still trying to come to terms with it now.

Actually for a while after it happened I was seriously considering postponing the wedding, but in the end we all agreed that mum would have wanted me to go ahead with it.
That horrible day is still so clear in my head, but one of the positive things I remember on that night, just as we were leaving the hospital for the last time, was my dad saying about Dave who’d been incredibly supportive and I quote ‘he’ll make an excellent son in law’, and I knew he was right. So Dave I just want to say ‘Thank you for being there’.

Anyway I don’t want this to be depressing and the main reason I decided to make the speech was so that we could have a toast in my mum’s honour as I know she will be here in spirit today even if she can’t make it in person. She’ll be on that dance floor with us, as she was always the life and soul of the party. So if we can raise our glasses -
‘I would like to make a toast to all those who couldn’t be here today and all those loved and lost, I hope we meet again’.

Also I’d also like to thank all my fantastic close friends and family who have all been so amazingly supportive through this time, having you there to listen has made it so much easier to get through....

So now you see. I had to and although I was REALLY nervous and despite trying couldn't stop the tears from falling at one point, when it was over I was so pleased i'd done it. Particularly as that very morning I was still unsure as to whether I could go ahead with it and went through it at least 5 times.

After we left the marquee my aunt gave me a big hug and said how proud mum would have been. It was captured on camera by one of the guests and is one of my favourite pics of the day -

Promise next week i'll get to the bit with the dancing :)