How Long Should a Wedding Speech Be? The Definitive Answer
The sweet spot is 4-6 minutes. Here's why, plus timing guidance for every speech type and how to cut yours down without losing what matters.
Part of the How to Write a Wedding Speech guide: structure, length, and delivery.
Somewhere out there, a best man is writing a speech that's going to run eleven minutes. He doesn't know it yet. He thinks it's seven. He'll find out at the reception, when he can feel the room change around minute eight and the groom's mother stops making eye contact.
This is a preventable tragedy.
How long should a wedding speech be? The real answer is: shorter than you think. But the nuanced answer is more useful, because different speeches have different rhythms, different roles, and different expectations.
Here's the breakdown.
The rule everyone should start with
4 to 6 minutes is the sweet spot for almost every wedding speech.
That's roughly 500 to 750 words at a natural speaking pace (about 125 words per minute when you factor in pauses, reactions, and the occasional moment where you need to collect yourself).
Why 4-6? Because it's long enough to say something real and structured, and short enough that the room is still fully with you when you land your ending. A great 5-minute speech feels substantial. A mediocre 8-minute speech feels like a flight delay.
Timing by speech type
| Speech | Ideal Length | Absolute Max | |---|---|---| | Best Man | 4-6 minutes | 7 minutes | | Maid of Honor | 4-6 minutes | 7 minutes | | Father of the Bride | 5-7 minutes | 8 minutes | | Mother of the Bride | 4-5 minutes | 6 minutes | | Father of the Groom | 3-5 minutes | 6 minutes | | Groom | 3-5 minutes | 6 minutes | | Bride | 3-5 minutes | 6 minutes | | Wedding Vows (each person) | 1.5-2 minutes | 3 minutes |
A few notes on these:
The father of the bride gets the longest window because he typically opens the toasts and the room is freshest. He also has the most material to work from and the most emotional ground to cover.
Vows are different. Two minutes feels substantial. Three minutes starts to feel long, especially if both partners are speaking. If you're writing personal vows, 250 words is a good target.
If there are multiple speeches, the cumulative effect matters. Four 6-minute speeches is 24 minutes of toasts. Four 4-minute speeches is 16 minutes. The difference between those in a ballroom, with drinks getting warm and dinner getting cold, is significant.
The "two drinks" rule
Here's an informal gauge that actually works: your speech should end before the average guest finishes their second drink.
People arrive at cocktail hour and have one drink. They sit for dinner, get their wine poured, and have their second drink. If you're still going when glasses are empty and the waiter is hovering, you've lost the room, no matter how good the material is.
Attention at a wedding reception is not infinite. It's warm, generous, and genuine, but it has a ceiling. The best speeches don't test that ceiling. They end with the room wishing for just a little more.
What actually happens when you go too long
Let's be honest about the consequences, because "too long" can feel abstract until you've been in a room where it's happening.
Minute 7: The first fidget. Someone adjusts in their chair. A few people glance at their phones under the table.
Minute 8: The laughter gets slightly more polite. The room is still supportive but starting to work at it.
Minute 9: Whispered side conversations begin at a few tables. The bar staff starts moving more noticeably.
Minute 10+: The groom has a very specific look on his face. The planner is in the back of the room doing math about the timeline.
None of this is a reflection of how much people love you or care about what you're saying. It's just physics. Attention has weight and weddings are long days.
How to cut your speech down
Most first drafts are too long. That's normal. Here's how to find the right version inside the longer one.
Read it out loud and time it. Not in your head. Out loud, at the pace you'll actually speak. Most people are shocked to discover their "six-minute speech" runs nine.
Identify your one best story. You may have written three. You probably only need one. Pick the one that does the most work: reveals character, gets a laugh, and earns the emotional turn. Cut the others, or compress them to a single sentence of reference.
Cut the setup. The beginning of most speeches is where the fat lives. "Hi, I'm [name], I've known [person] for [X years]..." can usually be cut entirely or reduced to one line. Start closer to the interesting part.
Look for redundancy. Did you already say something similar earlier in the speech? If a point has been made, making it again doesn't reinforce it. It just makes the speech longer.
Kill the adjectives. "He is the most loyal, generous, kind-hearted, genuinely wonderful person I have ever met." That's four adjectives doing the job that one well-chosen story would do better. Replace lists of qualities with a single specific scene.
End before you think you should. Your instinct when you get to the close is to linger a little. Resist it. The raise of the glass is the period on the sentence. Everything after it is overtime.
How to practice timing
Time yourself three times on three different days. The first time you'll run long. The second time you'll rush. The third time you'll find your real pace.
Record yourself on your phone. Listen back. You will hate it. Do it anyway. You'll immediately hear where you're dragging, where you're rushing, and where a pause should live.
One note on nerves: most people speak faster when nervous. So if you're hitting exactly 5 minutes in rehearsal, plan for 5 minutes at the reception too, because the adrenaline and the crowd reactions will affect your pace in ways that mostly cancel out.
The honest truth about short speeches
A 3-minute speech that says one true, specific, beautifully delivered thing is more memorable than a 9-minute speech that covers everything.
Nobody has ever walked out of a wedding saying "I wish that speech had been longer." People do sometimes walk out saying "That was perfect, I could have listened to him talk about them forever." Notice the difference: the second one is about wanting more, not receiving more.
Give them exactly enough. Leave them wanting the extra minute.
Keep reading
- How to Write a Three-Minute Wedding Speech
- How to Shorten a Wedding Speech
- How to Practice a Wedding Speech
A speech calibrated to exactly the right length, with all the filler cut and the real moments amplified, is what SpokenVow is built to produce.
Ready to write yours? Our interview process pulls out the specific stories and honest details, then builds drafts already timed to the right length for your speech type, so you're not guessing, and you're not cutting on your own.
