Here is part 2, the evening ceremony for Lachy and Hanna’s wedding.
It was so great to see two people I really care about get married. Lachy and Hanna were both my old housemates, and it was so cool to see their relationship build over time. When it came to the wedding, it wasn’t a paint by numbers affair. Rather, it was very much them, which is the best kind.
I could spill a lot of digital ink on this topic, but I wanted to focus on three main things, which are incidentally, usually my three favourite things about a wedding: the food, the dancing, and the speeches.
For the food, I genuinely believe it was the best meal I have ever had at a wedding. Hanna’s family donated a whole cow to the occasion, and the caterers used a massive wood fired grill to cook everything from the ribeye, to the porterhouse, the brisket and the rump. Combined with the roasted potatoes, fresh tomatoes and pumpkins, it was a legit feast.
If the food was memorable, the dancing was unforgettable. Lachy and Hanna are both very proud of their Scottish Heritage, so for the first half of their after dinner dancing, they had a traditional band playing, complete with dance caller. I had never done traditional Scottish dancing, but boy, was it fun. They’re surprisingly complex, largely due to the coordination problem inherent in group exercises. While Person A might know what’s going on, if Person B doesn’t, and they’re paired, then things can get a little hairy. Fortunately, there is are convergence and filtering mechanism implicitly present in these activities; over time, due to the repetitive nature of each dance, people quite literally get the swing of it and the dance gets better. For those two drunk, uncoordinated, or both to perform their role admirably, they usually self-select out of the shenanigans, thus providing a Darwinian improvement.
In short, it was great fun and an even better chance to warm up. Northern Tasmania in autumn is COLD, and by 10pm, without the dancing, the only activity would be jostling for prime positions by the fire pits. A final note: you never know who is going to be a natural at these things; next time YOU go to one, you may be pleasantly surprised.
Finally, the speeches. Most people sway between hating them or tolerating them as a necessary tradition. I personally love them, although on this occasion, it was my turn to speak.
This wasn’t my first time speaking in front of a crowd, but it was at a wedding. It’s a high pressure moment, and I wanted to do a good job for the couple.
Interestingly, the resources online were surprisingly poor. So much was formulaic templates designed around getting the very poor to passable, and very little about how to do it well. There seemed to be an inbuilt bias that most people are naturally terrible at public speaking, and need every bit of help they can get. It’s an interesting hypothesis, but not one I can fully get behind. We all talk to crowds, often just smaller ones, but with far less preparation. The backchannel feedback mechanisms that we observe – laughter, silence, disgust – are far more muted when presenting than they would be when in close company. Finally, you get much greater creative licence when you have the mic in your hand. You can hang on to pauses, and play with timing, in a way that can be difficult if someone is ready to butt in. If you’re talking with five people at a cocktail party, and need to take a moment to gather your thoughts, what are the odds that the other four will patiently wait for you? Perhaps if you’re very rich, very famous, or very old, you may enjoy that privilege more often, but in my experience the conversational production line rarely stops
I think I did a good job. Others thought so too, but that is a poor indicator, as people are friendly and the crowd is on your side. My one suggestion to anyone who ever has to do something similar is to find a good way to end it. No, not the conclusion, which is important, but a way to formally close the speech. Clapping is not going to happen, nor are you going to take a bow. If you just conclude and walk off stage, it can leave a lot of awkward space, at least for a moment. A toast would be a good option, but let me know if you have ever seen or performed something more creative that worked.
Leave a Reply