The sad lament of the bridesmaid is well known in song and story, and urban legend, and bridal reality shows, and popular movies… and the list goes on ad nauseum. Nearly every woman I’ve ever known has had a horror story in her back pocket about being a bridesmaid – whether her own experience or one a friend of a friend read about in a magazine once upon a time – to tell anyone who announces her engagement or that she’s about to attend a bride. There are websites devoted to ridiculing horrible bridesmaid’s dresses past. There’s currently an article up on MSNBC about how rotten – and incredibly expensive – it is to be a bridesmaid.

But how bad is it really?

I’ve been a bridesmaid three times… four, if you count the time I got nabbed on two minute’s notice at a Highland Games where some friends of mine decided to have an impromptu vow reaffirmation. Yeah, a pair of Renaissance Scots were attended by a Victorian housemaid (I was demonstrating bobbin lace making in a turn of the century mansion) and there was much rejoicing. And you know what? I would gladly be a bridesmaid again.

Sure, there are brides out there who inflict horrible dresses on their attendants and expect too much. I wore dusty rose taffeta with matching nylon lace once. I saw an episode of Say Yes to the Dress Bridesmaids where the bride informed her friends that anyone who wanted to be a bridesmaid had to be ready to pony up $1,200 just for the dress and the five-inch Loubouton heels to go with. At least my taffeta horror only set me back $35.00 and an afternoon of wearing a color I detest. And that rainbow squeezebox illustrating the article? Will probably haunt my nightmares.

And yet, I honestly believe that most brides want to do right by their attendants. I’ve been asked to help scout sites, pick fabrics, tie bouquets, address invitations, and hand hold brides through emotional crises without once feeling put upon or used. I’ve thrown a wedding shower without going into massive debt.

In fact, the single worst thing ever to happen to me as a bridesmaid was the time my ankle started itching insistently just after I started up the aisle, right when I couldn’t do anything about it. It itched like crazy for the entire forty-five minute ceremony (the bride was Catholic, the groom Baptist, and both traditions were being observed), and stopped just three steps before I got to the place where I could have finally scratched to my heart’s content.

Weighed against one really ugly (but incredibly inexpensive!) dress, a nasty itch I couldn’t do anything about, and having to grin and bear it when the groom’s brother at one wedding told a fifteen minute version of the moose turd pie joke as his toast to the happy couple, there was an awful lot in the plus column.

There was the knowledge that women I loved and trusted chose me to represent the community they hoped would support their marriages. There was the opportunity to use my skills in crafts and hand-holding to make their weddings better. There were parties. There were even presents. Those dinosaur scatter pins one bride gave me still get a lot of use, as they have since 1987!

The costs beyond the dresses were all pretty much of my own choosing. Even that shower I held was basically the cost of the food served, the invitations, and a present for the bride. It was held at my parents’ house and we served tea and nibbles on my mother’s good china. Everybody had fun.

Yes, there are bridesmaids with horror stories to tell. Yes, there are brides who are completely unreasonable in their demands. But I think it’s worth noting that these are, frankly, exceptions to the rule.

Sure a few famous women – mostly movie stars and novelists – might continue to use their birth names professionally, but for most women marriage spelled the end of any professional life that might require continuity of address. She might get a job, particularly once the children were in school, but she wouldn’t have a profession. And even if she did have a profession, her professional identity would change to suit her social one.

Today, though, there are a lot more options. You can follow the traditional form. You can hyphenate. You can simply go by the names you used before you got married. You can both change to something completely new. You can go socially by your husband’s name and professionally by your birth name. I even knew one woman who kept her own name socially but used her husband’s professionally. She was a kindergarten teacher and the kids found his last name easier to pronounce than hers.

The decision, as I have said many times before, is entirely up to the two people getting married. Whether you’re a traditionalist or a same-sex couple that can’t abide the idea of one of you being the ‘bride’ and one the ‘groom’ no matter your gender and feelings about your names, though, one thing is for sure: today you cannot assume that everyone will know what choice you have made.

So how do you get the information across to your entire social circle?

Word of mouth is always appropriate, of course. Tell your immediate family and wedding party what your decision is. If someone thinks to ask, tell them without defensiveness or timidity. This is a statement of fact. How they choose to react to it is not your responsibility. If they want to argue, simply assure them you’ve made your decision and that’s the end of the matter. Then pointedly change the subject. I have found ‘How about that local sports franchise?’ to be an excellent signal that it’s time to move on.

But I think there’s an even better way to handle the announcement and it’s surprisingly old fashioned: the at home card.

(Illustration via Spark Love Notes)

Once upon a time, these clever little cards were used to inform potential visitors of the ‘at home’ days and times of the lady of the house. These were the times when she would make herself available to callers. But they were also used by newlyweds to let their friends know where they were setting up home as well as those times when they could be visited.

Today most of us don’t lead the sort of lives that are conducive to sitting in the parlor waiting to see who wants to come see us. We’re too busy actually going places, doing things, and arranging specific times and places to see the people we want to see.

All the same, they can be useful in letting people know: your new address (if that is changing), how you wish to be addressed, and when you’ll be back from your honeymoon in one fell swoop.

So drop one of these business card sized cards into your invitations, and everyone will know how you wish to be addressed in future!

Tip #1 for Wedding Guests: Do not attempt to slow dance with one of the people who just got married unless that person married you. Stick to fast dances with the bride or the groom. This guest decided slow dancing with the groom was a good idea. It was not.

Tip #2 for Wedding Guests: If you do make the mistake of slow dancing with the groom and the bride wants to cut in, let her. The guest in question decided that her wanting to slow dance with the groom outweighed the bride’s right to dance with her new husband. This did not end well.

Tip #3 for Wedding Guests: If you don’t want to stop slow dancing with the groom, this does not mean you get to attempt to slug the bride.

Tip #4 for Wedding Guests: If while in a drunken state you do slow dance with the groom and then attempt to slug the bride, do not attempt to wrest your car keys from the good people trying to stop you from driving drunk and quite possibly killing yourself on your way home, not to mention endangering the lives of everyone on your path.

Tip #5 for Wedding Guests: If the local constabulary arrive to try to sort out the situation, do not ever slug the cop. Trust me, this will not help your case.

Tip #6 for Wedding Guests (which probably ought to have been number one): Do not get drunk at weddings. Pace yourself with the liquor. Break it up with non-booze-based drinks.

As for the Bride and Groom, well, I’ve got a couple tips for them, too.

Tip #1 for Bridal Couples: Save the slow dances for the person you just married. Seriously, save it for your spouse.

Tip #2 for Bridal Couples: Really don’t dance with people who are drunk. Be nice, but escort them to the sidelines and make sure someone takes their car keys away.

Tip #3 for Bridal Couples: If you do find yourself slow dancing with a drunken guest, be sure your new spouse knows you’re just humoring a drunk person to minimize the ruckus. The corollary is that if you see your new spouse slow dancing with a drunken guest, try not to overreact. Do your best to come up with a distraction rather than a confrontation. It’s a lot easier to end the situation without violence that way.

Tip #4 for Bridal Couples: Keep your sense of humor. You’re going to need it.

Tip #5 for Bridal Couples: If a guest gets drunk enough to take a swing at you, call them a cab as well as wresting the car keys away. If that person gets behind the wheel of a car and causes serious damage to property or people along the way home, you could find yourself legally on the hook for part of the damage. If your crowd runs to heavy drinking, have a plan for getting the keys away and cabs to the site.

Tip #6 for Bridal Couples (which probably should have been number one): Make sure guests have non-alcoholic choices at the bar and on the tables. Consider limiting the amount of liquor available if drinking is a problem in your circle. There is nothing impolite about holding a dry reception or keeping the liquor list to wine and beer. Hosts are required to provide refreshments, but that does not mean they are required to provide every form of alcohol known to man in copious amounts.

Also, feed your guests well. Plenty of food reduces the likelihood of guests getting hit hard by what they drink. It’s a lot easier to get drunk on an empty stomach than a full one.

Guests do overindulge at weddings and get drunk. It happens. The important thing is to watch carefully for the signs, and handle the issue as quietly as possible.

After all, you don’t want your wedding remembered for the drunk guest who tried to assault the bride and got arrested, do you?

I didn’t think so.

But because we’re human, we seem to have an innate need to complicate simple things. So let’s take a look at a couple myths about gifts that tend to complicate our lives and see what baggage we can unload right here and now to reduce bridal (and guestal!) stress.

Myth 1: Your Gift Should Cover Your Plate. This is probably the single most annoying myth going. It’s the kudzu of etiquette mythology. It’s a completely crap thing that nobody wants and is nearly impossible to eradicate. In fact, it’s the polar opposite of etiquette.

How the myth got started, I have no idea, but simply put this is the concept that you should spend at least as much on your gift to the happy couple as they spent on feeding and entertaining you. Because of this myth, many a person has missed the wedding of someone they love dearly or gone into debt to come up with a gift ‘grand’ enough to suit the purpose. This is horrible.

The reality is that etiquette requires no gift at all from wedding guests. A guest who arrives bearing nothing more than a heartfelt congratulatory note is being absolutely polite. What’s more, ‘cover your plate’ is an etiquette nightmare on more than one front. After all, it’s amazingly rude to try to sit down and calculate the precise amount of money someone spent on entertaining you! Miss Manners would have a very quiet fit about that, and rightly so.

Myth 2: It’s Rude To Put Expensive Things On Your Gift Registry. Funny, that, since one of the reasons gift registries got started in the first place was so that guests had a handy idea of what china and silver patterns the happy couple wanted. These things never came cheap.

Look, registries fall under the category of useful things etiquette turns a (mostly) blind eye toward so long as you don’t make a public spectacle of yourself about it. It’s along the lines of the letters to Santa you may have written as a child: it’s a wish list, not marching orders. And yes, it’s fine to put that big screen TV or professional grade stand mixer on your wish list… so long as you also remember that casserole dishes and washcloths and wooden spoons are good things to have, too. You know, sort of like how that letter to Santa included a box of new crayons as well as the pony you probably never got. But some kid out there did get a pony for Christmas, and you never know when several people will get together and chip in for that HD3-D TV!

Myth 3: It’s Rude To Give Things That Aren’t On the Registry. To this I can only say poppycock! With a side of balderdash! Remember where I said gift registries are like letters to Santa? Yeah, I bet you didn’t complain too badly when you got toys, games, and so on that you didn’t ask Santa to bring you. Sometimes the best gifts are the things you couldn’t have asked for because they weren’t in a catalogue or sitting on the shelf of a store.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the pots, pans, towels, sheets, and gadgets Mr. Twistie and I registered for and got. There are people I think of and thank silently every time I use the knife or pan they gave us. But I’m touched that there were also people who gave us their time and talents. One friend did a lovely counted cross stitch picture for us. She has since died, unfortunately, and it’s the only piece of her needlework I have. But because of it, she’s with me every day. Another good friend made us a fabulous original quilt with the story of our lives and our love on it. It’s absolutely unique and keeps us snuggly warm on winter nights. Yet another friend gave us one of his original paintings. You can’t register for stuff like that.

Myth 4: If You Don’t Want Gifts, Print a Note On Your Invitation. Oh no, no, no, no, no. Remember what I said in Myth 1 about how it’s perfectly polite to show up at a wedding with nothing but congratulations to offer? Yeah, that’s because wedding gifts – while popular and more than acceptable – are not required. Putting something in writing on your invitation tells everyone that you are expecting gifts, which is not terribly polite. Yes, I know you are expecting gifts, but this is one of those cases where it’s considered a little greedy looking to say so, even if what you’re saying is ‘look, I know you’re planning on giving me things, but I’d really rather you saved your money and forgot about it.’ Why? Because gifts are not actually required. They are an optional extra that the guest may choose to give. Saying ‘don’t give me one’ assumes that the optional is required until you release people from their obligation.

But what if you really don’t want gifts? Well, you get that word out the same way you do about where you’re registered: by word of mouth, sans a big announcement. Let everyone in your family and bridal party know that you really don’t need gifts, and let them quietly pass the word around your circle for you. This is also the proper way to let it be known that what you really want is cold, hard cash or donations to your favorite charity, too.

Myth 5: You Have a Year To Write Your Thank You Notes. Actually, the guests have a year to choose to give you a wedding gift… and that’s really not a terribly hard and fast rule, either. That quilt I mentioned earlier? Yeah, it didn’t actually wind up on our bed for about thirteen years. Long story, but we weren’t going to kick it out of bed for being a little late.

But thank you notes should be written as soon as possible. In fact, wedding gifts are most properly delivered to the bride’s home before the wedding. The old tradition was to display the wedding gifts at the wedding, though that has – thankfully! – fallen into disfavor and mostly disappeared over the last few decades. Still, since the idea behind wedding gifts is to help the couple set up their new home with everything they need, the idea is still also that they ought to arrive before the wedding day so that when the happy couple return from their honeymoon, they can go straight to their already stocked home.

That means that if anyone follows that aspect of wedding etiquette, you should stand at the ready with stationery, stamps, and your best penmanship to send out those thank you notes before the wedding day. Any gifts that arrive the day of the wedding or after your return from your honeymoon… do your best to get those thanks out within the first two or three months of your marriage. And always remember, two people got married, so unless your new spouse broke a dominant wrist while rock climbing… you can share that particular load freely.

But every once in a while, the actual wedding is held quietly and privately, or is held very far away from many friends and family members, or the happy couple wants to honor some form of milestone by reaffirming their commitment to one another publicly, or the relationship may not be recognized legally where the couple lives, but they wish to make a public commitment anyway. No matter which case is the one that fits your situation, you still need to understand how to word your invitation so that it is both polite and understandable.

First off, no matter how little publicity it received, if you are already married, do not invite people to a wedding. No matter how bare bones or secret it was, you already had your wedding. A wedding is the ceremony that binds you as a married couple, whether or not it involves a formal gown, cake, champagne, or flowers. Those are trimmings.

So, if you have already exchanged vows and signed papers, the celebration you are holding now is not your wedding. Depending on the activities involved, what you are now holding is either a religious blessing, a reaffirmation of your vows, or a reception. Have all the trimmings you like for this, and enjoy the heck out of what you are doing. Just don’t call it a wedding.

If you are having your religious leader celebrate your marriage, then you are having a blessing. Call it that on the invitation:

Mr. and Mrs. Drew Howland Gibb
request the honor of your presence
at the blessing of their marriage

Or, if the couple are not sharing a last name:

Ms. Honora Violet Howe
and
Mr. Drew Howland Gibb
request the honor of your presence
at the blessing of their marriage

If you are choosing to reaffirm your vows, whether because you’ve reached a major anniversary, overcome a significant test of your commitment to one another, or simply enjoy celebrating your marriage, here’s how to pass on the good news:

Mr. and Mrs. Drew Howland Gibb
request the pleasure of your company
as they reaffirm their marriage vows

If you are not having any sort of a ceremony, then what you’re doing is holding a reception. Whether you got married quietly because that was your plan all along, eloped on a sudden impulse, or have family and friends in multiple large pockets around the country and want to celebrate with all of them in turn, a reception is completely appropriate and a lot of fun, to boot. It’s the party part of the wedding.

So how do you word it? That’s the simplest thing of all! You just call it what it is.

Mr. and Mrs. Drew Howland Gibb
request the pleasure of your company
at their wedding reception

Note that the form ‘honor of your presence’ is never used in this form, because there is no religious ceremony involved. Even if you hold your reception in the church hall and have your pastor give a prayer during the party, this is a secular event.

And then there is one final form to cover, even though it isn’t strictly speaking an invitation: the announcement.

Some couples just plain want a very small, intimate wedding with only a handful of people in actual attendance. They will often, however, want to let others know about the marriage. In this case, announcements are a great way to let people know what’s happened without having to plan for a larger celebration than you originally intended. Announcements are also good for cases where the couple have friends and family spread out all over the world and unlikely to be able to come join the celebration up close. Of course it is also absolutely correct to send invitations to people you wish could be with you but likely won’t… you just have to make sure you plan as though these invitations might be accepted. They might be.

One good friend of mine was shocked when her uncle from New Zealand actually accepted the invitation to her wedding. He was more than welcome, of course, but she never really expected anyone from that branch of the family to fly all the way to California for the wedding of a relative they barely remembered as a little girl!

So, once you’ve decided to send out announcements, how do you word them? Well, obviously, you don’t invite them to anything, and you don’t send them out until after the wedding is over. Here’s how they should be worded:

Mr. and Mrs. Xavier Quincey Vann
are pleased to announce
the wedding of their daughter
Clara Marie Eleanore
to
Mr. Alvin Gregory Wheeler

Or, if the couple wishes to make the announcement themselves:

Clara Marie Eleanore Vann
and
Alvin Gregory Wheeler
are pleased to announce
their marriage

And now you can invite and announce with confidence.

Traditionally, the form is ladies first. The bride’s parents were responsible for the entire celebration, and it was often the one day of her life that a woman got to be seriously celebrated. The world has changed, but ladies first is still the rule.

So how do we deal if there are two ladies getting married? What about when it’s two guys and there isn’t a lady to go first?

Well, at that point, we think back to kindergarten. Chances are that’s when you started learning about alphabetical order, right along with learning what an alphabet is.

Here’s how it looks:

Mr. and Mrs. Durward Elliot Bayless
request the honor of your presence
at the marriage of their son
Arthur Cyril
to
Mr. Abner Clayton DeVere

Or, if the happy couple is hosting their own celebration:

Mr. Arthur Cyril Bayless
and
Mr. Abner Clayton DeVere
request the pleasure of your company
at their marriage

Two women marrying? It’s done just the same:

Miss Annabelle Daisy May
and
Miss Doreen Lola Ramsey
request the honor of your presence
at their marriage

But what if it’s not the happy couple, but a set of parents who are the same-sex couple? Not a problem! Here’s the drill:

Mr. Bernard J. Cummings
and
Mr. Barrisford Alan Greyson
request the pleasure of your company
at the marriage of their daughter
Gloria Daphne Greyson
to
Mr. Charles Leonard Hixon

See how easy that is?

Tune in tomorrow to see how to handle the question of wording the invitation when the celebration isn’t the wedding proper.

Not to panic. There are forms that have developed over time, because no matter your situation, you are not the first one facing it.

If the parents are divorced and nobody has remarried, here is how it looks:
Ms. Julia Eloise Culpepper
and
Mr. Edmund Godfrey Smythe
request the honor of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Gwendolyn Petunia
to
Mr. Wilfred Mikhail Jones
son of
Ms. Frieda Maureen Jones
and
Mr. Dagwood Edgar Jones

Note that how the divorced mother is addressed depends on which surname she uses socially. That means the parents of the bride in this example also illustrate nicely how to word things when your happily married parents don’t share a last name.

But what if one or both of your parents has remarried? Do they all get listed? And what if one has been remarried multiple times? Do you have to list every step parent you’ve ever had?

Well, if any of those step parents are no longer a part of your life, you are under no obligation to list them. In fact, if you’ve got four step parents between your two parents… it would get mighty crowded up there to try to squeeze them all into the invitation. These things are only so big and the writing can only be so small before nobody can read what it says.

The rule of thumb would be to include only current step parents. In that case, your wording would go like this:

Mr. and Mrs. Donovan Q. Culpepper
and
Mr. and Mrs. Edmond Geoffrey Smythe
request the pleasure of your company
at the marriage of their daughter
Gwendolyn Petunia
to
Mr. Wilfred Mikail Jones

Or, as I said yesterday, you can just skip the names of all the parents and use this form:

Together with their parents,
Miss Gwendolyn Petunia Smythe
and
Mr. Wilfred Mikhail Jones
request the pleasure of your company
at their marriage

But what if one of your parents is dead? In that case, of course, you have my deepest sympathy. It’s not easy to lose a parent. My own beloved mother and Mr. Twistie’s father had both shuffled off this mortal coil well before we were married. We were also hosting our own shindig, so we just went with the ‘together with our parents’ wording.

Then again, you may want your parents’ names on your invitation. Here’s how to do it properly:

The honor of your presence is requested
at the marriage of
Miss Gwendolyn Petunia Smythe
daughter of
Ms. Julia Eloise Culpepper
and
the late Mr. Edmond Geoffrey Smythe
to
Mr. Wilfred Mikhail Jones
son of
Mr. Dagwood Edgar Jones
and
the late Mrs. Frieda Maureen Jones

Please note that this is the only form in which a deceased parent is ever listed on a wedding invitation. The dead cannot host parties. No, not even if they would have approved the match.

If you’re not doing this form, simply use the names of the living parents as shown in whatever other form is most appropriate to your needs.

Tune in again tomorrow to see how to list everyone when holding a same-sex celebration, or when one (or more) of your parents is in a same-sex relationship.

Don’t panic. It’s really not as complicated as all that. You just need to know what the rules are and how they affect your choices. Also? Nobody ever died of an ill-worded wedding invitation, so it’s okay to lighten up a bit.

Is your wedding taking place in a place of worship? If so, the correct thing to ask guests for is the honor of their presence. If the wedding is being held in a hotel, garden, living room, skydiving facility, and amusement park or any other place that is not specifically dedicated to religious services, then you ask your guests for the pleasure of their company.

Make certain guests know what precisely they are being invited to attend. Is it a wedding? A reception to honor a couple who eloped? Just make sure that even if you add in phrases about celebrating everlasting love or witnessing the joy of a new family that you still put in words that people will understand to mean a particular kind of celebration they’ve heard of. People want to know for sure whether this is a wedding, a commitment ceremony that will not make the couple legally married, a reception for a couple who has already married, a reaffirmation of vows (vows do not need renewing like a driver’s license, but may occasionally benefit from reaffirmation), or an anniversary party.

According to tradition, the bride’s parents names go first as the hosts of the occasion. The standard wording goes something like this:

Mr. and Mrs. G. Percival Arbuthnot
request the honor of your presence at the wedding of their daughter,
Millicent Penelope
to
Mr. Stanhope Morton Terwilliger
etc.

Once upon a time, Mr. and Mrs. Terwilliger wouldn’t have gotten a mention on the invitation because the bride’s parents were the hosts and the groom’s parents… frankly they were just guests who got extra flowers.

Of course, rising divorce rates, the rising age of first time brides and grooms, groom’s parents equality marches and myriad other things have made this a less and less common form. These days many a bride and groom host their own shindig. Sometimes a bride or groom has multiple stepparents who are part of the celebration. It’s not uncommon that one or the other of the bridal couple has lost a parent, or even both.

So what do you do about all of those situations?

If both sets of parents are acting as hosts, it’s a matter of putting it like this:

Mr. and Mrs. G. Percival Arbuthnot
and
Mr. and Mrs. Virgil Stanhope Terwilliger
Request the honor of your presence
At the wedding of their children
Millicent Penelope Arbuthnot
and
Stanhope Morton Terwilliger

If the happy couple is hosting their own party, there are a couple options:

Miss Millicent Penelope Arbuthnot
and
Mr. Stanhope Morton Terwilliger
Request the honor of your presence

or:

Millicent Penelope Arbuthnot
and
Stanhope Morton Terwilliger
Together with their parents
Request the pleasure of your company

If you’ve got a whole lot of parents between you, this might be the smartest way to go, just so nobody gets left out or feels snubbed by the order.

or:
Miss Millicent Penelope Arbuthnot
Daughter of Mr. and Mrs. G. Percival Arbuthnot
and
Mr. Stanhope Morton Terwilliger
Son of Mr. and Mrs. Virgil Stanhope Terwilliger
Request the pleasure of your company

Tune in tomorrow for hints and tips in cases where divorce or death will affect the wording of the invitation, thursday for how to word a same-sex wedding invitation, and friday for when the invitation isn’t to the ceremony.

Of course, not every best man is used to public speaking. Or best woman. We’re not fussy about the gender of the bridal party around here. But no matter who’s filling the role, there are a few tips that will make making that speech easier for the speaker and nicer for the listeners, too.

Speak from the heart. I don’t care whether you memorize your speech or read it off. That’s between you and the butterflies in your stomach. Find the approach that will get you through the speech and don’t apologize to anyone for it. What I’m talking about here is finding something to say that really matters to you, and saying it. Even if your speech is mostly light-hearted and funny, let your friends know how happy you are for them, and don’t be afraid to express your love for them sincerely.

Know your audience. There are two wedding speeches I heard many years ago that still make me cringe. At one wedding, the bridesmaids were gently roasting the bride about her tendency to speak in malaprops when they mentioned the time she meant to talk about an Italian bread, but inadvertently used a technical term for a popular sex act. Yeah, that went over like nobody’s business with the bride’s very, very, VERY staid and proper grandmother. The other was the best man whose speech consisted of a fifteen-minute version of the moose turd pie joke. Not. Funny.

Look, some audiences are good with bawdy – or even completely tasteless – jokes, and some are not. When in doubt, err on the side of caution. Make the most tasteless jokes and references at the bachelor’s party or at your next guy’s night out.

Practice, practice, practice. Unless you are the king of the off-the-cuff tear-jerker speech, chances are you’ll want to give your speech several dry runs before you take the microphone at the banquet table. You’ll want your speech to sound as natural as possible, and that’s easier if you know exactly what you’re going to say and how you’re going to say it. If an audience makes you nervous, ask a few friends to help you work up your nerve.

If you’re using a microphone, be sure you know how to speak into it. Most of us don’t use microphones on a daily basis. There’s a technique to it. Don’t panic, because it’s not that hard. Mostly, you have to make certain you’re speaking into it. Hold it several inches from your mouth, direct it toward your lips, and speak normally. If your mouth changes direction, you need to move the mic in the same direction. Otherwise, it won’t pick up what you’re saying. Also, make sure you know where the off switch is.

Oh, and remember the most important thing: treat every microphone as a live microphone. Don’t say anything into or around it that you don’t want others to hear.

Make sure you talk about both the bride and the groom. Even if you’ve decided to go ahead and be best man despite thinking the groom is making a mistake, the wedding reception is not the time to make a big deal of it. Even if you dislike your friend’s choice of life partner, find something nice to say about her or him. If you’re happy about who he chose, obviously that makes it much, much easier.

Think about how long you’re going to talk. Time is a balancing act with wedding speeches. Make it too short and there’s no point. Make it too long and most of your audience will resent their inability to get at the bubbly while you’re babbling. While the moose turd pie joke was utterly tasteless, the fact that it took the guy fifteen minutes to tell it was at least as bad as the joke itself. Aim for somewhere between thirty seconds and two minutes. Less and people wonder why you got up at all. More makes people itchy. This is, after all, a toast, not a Victorian political speech.

Speak clearly. I know that nerves can make it very difficult to do this, but if nobody can hear what you’re saying… there’s not much point in a speech. Enunciate to the best of your ability, make certain you know the correct pronunciation of all the words in your speech, and don’t speak too quickly. You want everyone to hear the thoughtful and moving things you’re saying to your friends.

Keep it in perspective. Look, even if you miss the mic, make an unfortunate reference, go over or under time, inadvertently insult the bride, or drop your notes and lose your place… it’s not the end of the world. While I remember those two wedding speeches with shudders, most of what I remember from both weddings is happy couples surrounded by loving friends and families, plenty of good food, great music, dancing, and two terrific parties. No matter how badly you flub, it’s only one tiny aspect of the day, and chances are most people will forget it pretty quickly. Besides, if you give yourself permission to screw up, chances are you’ll do better than you would if you build it into a matter of life or death.

Chances are you were chosen because of the friendship you share with the groom, not your reputation as a public speaker. Everyone in the room will probably be in a good mood and willing to cut you slack if you need it. Do the same for yourself.

Most of all, take a deep breath right before you go on. It helps.

But after all of this effort, you really don’t want to spend your wedding night getting plastered. Well, maybe you do, but if that’s the case, just move along, nothing to see here. If, on the other hand, you have concerns about overdoing the festivities and don’t like that idea, just follow me after the cut for some sage advice on how to have a great time but still keep your head at your wedding.

My first piece of advice is this: be sure to eat on your wedding day. Seriously, this is probably the number one reason brides and grooms wind up overdoing the bubbly and spending more of the night fighting to get at the porcelain god than enjoying their first night of marital bliss.

Many brides and grooms are terribly nervous, come the big day. Whether it’s concern about something going wrong, cold feet, or simple stage fright, it’s easy to let those nerves make you think you can’t keep anything solid down. And then all too often, members of the bridal party are right there telling you nothing relieves the jitters and settles the tummy better than a glass of bubbly.

If you’re concerned that nerves might make you less than hungry, deputize someone to feed you on your wedding day. Talk to them beforehand about what sorts of food you think you might be able to handle in a crisis.

Remember, an empty stomach only makes the alcohol hit your system faster, and that means it takes a lot less for you to hit the floor.

Find another way to relax other than drinking. Drinking does relax people. It’s a depressant. That’s what depressants do. And in moderation, it’s good, clean fun that the whole adult family can enjoy. But it’s a depressant with consequences… you know, like most depressants. So if you can find a way of avoiding the stress or reducing it in a way that doesn’t involve alcohol, you won’t find yourself reaching quite as eagerly for the bottle and have a better chance of staying in control. So look for something like a breathing exercise, or something thing useful you can be doing with your hands. Go for a run before you have to get ready, or mentally calculate what the Titanic would have weighed had it been made of balsa wood. It doesn’t really matter what you’re doing, so long as it is something that relaxes you.

Be certain there are drinks at your reception that don’t include alcohol. This is just good advice, anyway. After all, chances are there’s someone on your guest list who either doesn’t drink or does so quite abstemiously. And if people have the option to drink less booze, well, that can save on the catering bill as well as making it that much less likely that anyone will overindulge. So do mix your drinks. Have a glass of champagne, and then make the next one fruit juice or water.

Remember, alcohol can contribute to dehydration… which makes you thirstier, which makes you drink more and makes the alcohol hit harder. Mixing it up with non-alcoholic drinks keeps you hydrated, which reduces your need for more drinks.

Have a receiving line. This is not only excellent etiquette, it’s also a helpful way of making sure you get to sit down and eat your reception meal rather than spending the dinner hour going from table to table and hunting down stragglers you missed. Remember, it’s just as important to eat at the reception as it is before the ceremony.

Look, everybody overindulges in something sometime. It’s not the end of the world if you do get tipsy at your own wedding. If it happens, try not to dwell. Let it go and go on with your life.

But if one ounce of this prevention keeps you from needing bail money on your wedding night… that’s a heck of a lot better than a cure!

Enjoy responsibly.