Great Wedding Toasts Dot Net

“Someone famous once said” seems to be a popular way to start out a wedding toast. One of the blessings of the Internet is that you can find a quote on almost everything. Soccer and marriage? Just Google it! You’ll certainly find two or three quotes that you can make fit this situation. It’s also true that good metaphors sink into our psyches and transform us. A good metaphor can guide a marriage. Unfortunately, fewer and fewer of us are adept at using quotes well.

When does it make sense for you to use the famous quotations from Bartlett’s or the less famous ones from someone’s blog? 50 years ago, education was different. People read more widely. Almost everyone took a liberal arts undergraduate degree if they went to college and those who hadn’t had fairly wide exposure to literature in high schools. Quotes that got trotted out at weddings (and funerals!) were beloved friends that people lived with. Many people knew the Bible. Many people knew poetry.

But that’s less true today for a majority of us. And so using quotes can seem artificial. Maybe it’s too much internet exposure, but I find gratuitous use of quotes tiresome. Lines of quotes go by on twitter, as people try to remind you how one they are with the universe, as they then try to sell you some program you simply must have to succeed. I’m not thinking the Dalai Lama or Gandhi are interested in sales. They are probably also not interested in feel good societies.

So if you want to use someone else’s words to illustrate your point, keep these guidelines in mind:

• Use quotes in context (unless you’re being particularly sly and funny).
• Use quotes from people whom you’ve encountered previously.
• Use quotes from sources that are known to you. (again, unless you’re looking to make people laugh by quoting from a source that is so NOT you.)
• Don’t be afraid to use homegrown quotes. What does your grandma say made her 60 year marriage work?
• Use quotes if you’re the sort of person who uses quotes either in everyday life or on special occasions.
• Use quotes from the wedding ceremony or the wedding vows if you can catch them.
• Use quotes to make a point about not using quotes. I’ve seen some deadpan deliveries about finding quotes that included 5 or 6 completely inappropriate quotes that then started a lovely personal reflection.
• Use quotes when they really fit what you have to say.

I wish we all read more. I wish we all spent more time sitting around quoting poetry or essayists on porches on summer evenings. But most of us don’t. Salting wedding speeches with the words of people we don’t know doesn’t make us look grand or smart, it simply distracts from what we have to say. So, speak from your heart and wish your friends well in their marriage. And start reading poetry now so that you’re prepared for the next wedding toast!

Bottom Line?: Give your relationship the chance it deserves to succeed wildly, against all odds! After all, you deserve it. Your relationship deserves it! And now I’d like to invite you to sign up to receive 2 free templates for creating the wedding ceremony of your dreams, the wedding vows of your heart and the marriage of a lifetime: http://annkeelerevans.org/weddings/free

The Rev. Ann Keeler Evans – helping you move from “I do” to happily and healthily ever after!

Technorati Tags: wedding toast quotes