Creative wedding toasts

October 4, 2013 4:15 AM

I have searched the archives and have a pretty good handle of what it takes to make a good standard wedding toast. But what about a creative wedding toast?

Younger Sister is getting married to a man I love and Older Sister and I will be doing a joint toast. Older Sister was married a year ago and Younger Sister and I also did a joint toast. Younger Sister put together an amazing annotated video slideshow of how the bride and groom met, which I followed up with the gushy closing remarks. It went over very well.

Now we are returning the gesture and I know Younger Sister would really like it if we did something similarly creative. However the grooms brother is a videographer and will be doing a video toast. So that's out, plus I don't want to do exactly what we did for Older Sister anyway.

Currently the vague idea I have is to include some quotes from the Google chats she used to write me when she was crushing on her now fiancé. They are funny in retrospect and not particularly private. Any ideas on how to make this creative? Print some choice quotes on poster board? Ideas appreciated! Anecdotes about your own non-standard toast welcome as well!

posted by halfsorry to Writing & Language (5 answers total)

What if you found some interesting, unique or famous (or otherwise notable) people read those quotes? Like when celebrities read tweets by people who hate them or when people read their angsty teenage diary entries at open mics.

You could have them read by people who are special to you -- family or friends -- or someone who has some inside-joke role in your lives, or someone completely random. Or someone you haven't seen for years, like your old neighbors or kindergarten teacher or something.
posted by Madamina at 5:19 AM on October 4, 2013

Sounds like a great idea! I think read the quotes aloud. It will provide a nice contrast to the video toast, and there's always inherent humor in reading aloud what people type in chats. And with two of you doing the toast, you could act out both sides of the conversation.
posted by RobinFiveWords at 7:24 AM on October 4, 2013

I have been to formal dinners where at one point in the evening a handful of people carrying big signs with one-liner jokes written on them walked slowly through the crowd. They would just walk in a big circle and then go back and get a different funny sign. It worked pretty well. You could do something similar if you have a bunch of silly quotes and get a few friends together.
posted by steinwald at 7:26 AM on October 4, 2013

I saw "creative wedding toast" and immediately got a picture of a piece of well-done toast dressed in a bridal gown wielding a paintbrush and standing at an easel.

Maybe that's a bit too creative for your purposes... but food for thought.
posted by 3FLryan at 7:31 AM on October 4, 2013

Rather than using a video display how about flashing large cardboard cards with cartoons that display key elements whilst reading some of the messages from Google Chat? They don't have to be technically amazing (although that would be good), they just have to be perfectly apt.
posted by h00py at 7:51 AM on October 4, 2013