Make ‘em cry and you’ve given a great wedding toast!

The best wedding toasts make your audience laugh and cry. Here’s the rub: it’s harder to make people laugh than cry. Not everything is funny. So Owen Wilson’s advice to Rachel McAdams in “The Wedding Crashers” (above) is spot-on: speak from the heart, make e’m cry, and your wedding toast will be a winner. Let’s explore some great movie wedding toasts for more toasting wisdom.

The Rachel McAdams character tried to be funny in the clip above, but her jokes fell about as flat as a Kansas plain from a scene in The Wizard of Oz.

McAdams regained the momentum when she turned tender, borrowing Wilson’s slick line:

“Someone once told me that true love is the soul’s recognizing of its counterpoint in another.”

In the scene above, Hugh Grant tries humor with great initial success, but takes it a step too far before making certain audience members uncomfortable. Like McAdams, he regains his footing with this line:

“I am, as ever, in bewildered awe of anyone who makes this kind of commitment that Angus and Laura have made today.”

You’ll never go wrong with tenderness.

Adam Sandler does just that in a classic scene form The Wedding Singer with this line:

“I think we all know that when you fall in love, the emptiness kind of drifts away because you find something to live for, each other.”

Again, it’s easier to connect with your audience with tenderness.

However, sometimes, humor and tenderness unite to create a memorable toast, such as the dad’s toast from the epic film, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.”

This movie wedding toast is very funny, and yet it tugs at the heart. Well done.

One of the best movie toasts ever comes in the movie, “About Time.”  British actor, Bill Nighy, delivers this dry, tender toast in 67 seconds, but you’ll never forget it:

Make note that a toast does not have to be long to be brilliant. In fact, just the opposite.

Let these classic movie wedding toasts inspire you next time you’re giving a toast.

And when the toasting is over, it’s time for the dancing.  That’s where we come in.  For packed dance floors at your Fayetteville wedding celebration, simply start a conversation with us. It’s easy: 1-910-323-2409.