50th Wedding Anniversary Speeches

making your 50th wedding anniversary toast part of their golden love story

'Tree of Love' Image: Robert Proksa

50th wedding anniversary speeches! Here's the recipe to tell a perfect golden wedding anniversary love story, to make a 50th wedding anniversary toast.

Whether you're the husband, wife, a dear friend or child of the couple celebrating, the speech you give you'll want to touch the hearts and minds of all who hear it.

That's the essence of 50 years of marriage distilled into 4 to 5 minutes: make them laugh, make them cry a little and make them reflect.

What to put in 50th wedding anniversary speeches:

• You'll need a smattering of anecdotes
  These are those funny little stories that have become legend through the years. The ones telling about how this couple met and their courtship. Who proposed to who, when and how?
• Add a dash of or two of wisdom
  What is the glue binding these two?
  Current statistical data tells us that around 40% of marriages in the United States end in divorce.
  There's something very special holding this marriage together. 50 years of partnership obviously has values worthy of celebration. Acknowledging and sharing them is truly inspirational for everyone. What qualities underpin this marriage?
• Stir in the stories
  Tell of family incidents, about hobbies or passions, times of trials and how they were overcome, enduring and endearing habits, jobs, community and mutual friends.
• Lots of love
  Give thanks, gratitude, respect, admiration and acknowledgement of time and suport given, services rendered, sacrifices made, and experiences shared.
• And a sprinkle of quotations
  Recall a habitual saying, a line from a song or poem that has personal significance, a verse, or a meaningful quotation.
  (The link will take you to a large eclectic, cross-cultural collection of wedding poems and readings many of which are suitable for 50th wedding anniversary toasts.)

Preparing 50th wedding anniversary speeches

First gather your ingredients

The easiest way to do this is to brainstorm.

Get yourself a blank piece of paper and without any thought of order, (beginning, middle or end of your speech), start jotting down ideas as they come to you.

Think in pictures and make them big, multi-colored ones. Now add sound, smell or taste to bring those memories back to life.

As each occurs note down a single word or a phrase - just enough to serve as a peg to hold the idea firm in your mind. You'll return to it later to flesh it out in detail if you decide it's wanted.

Do not dwell too long on any one idea. Work quickly and keep going until you run out of ideas, time or paper!

Review and Revise

Now go back through your notes and review them. Get rid of the weak and only keep the best or strongest ideas.

• Have you covered all the areas you wanted?
• Is there too much of any one topic?
• Not enough of another?

Organizing your golden wedding anniversary speech

With your notes ready to go you're set for the next step; organizing your 50th wedding anniversary speech. This is where you will order the flow of your material.

What comes first? What comes next? What's the link between these ideas? Can you see a theme uniting all your material?

To help you organize download a blank speech outline template. The template will guide you through structuring the opening, body and conclusion of your speech getting your notes in the best and most effective order possible.

Rehearsing 50th wedding anniversary speeches

Writing the outline of the speech is only part of the process. Rehearsing it is essential if you want it to be memorable for the right reasons.

Once you practice it out loud you'll find out whether it's too long, too short, the content doesn't flow as well as it could or there may even be parts needing a complete overhaul.

If possible give your speech to a couple of close family members or friends and ask them for feedback to help you fine tune. Practice too if you can in the venue. This will give you an idea of the volume you need in order to be heard or where to stand to be seen by everybody.

Related links to help you prepare:

• story telling in speeches
  How to make your anecdotes or stories come alive. You'll find ongoing links on characterization and story telling set-ups too.
• how to rehearse a speech
• overcoming fear of public speaking
  Really useful tips if you're frightened of making a mess of things through fear.
  

  (which you won't because any giver of 50th wedding anniversary speeches knows they're up to the task if they follow the rehearsal guidelines and practice!)

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