THE SEVEN-MINUTE SPEECH RULE
There’s a simple rule that exists in the world of wedding speeches, a golden, time-honoured rule that can save a room full of guests from the creeping fear that they may never see the cheesecake they’ve been looking forward to.
That rule is: keep a speech under seven minutes. Not eight, not, “Oooh, about ten but I’ll speak quickly.” Seven. Want some historical proof of this rule in action? JFK’s Ask not what your country can do for you speech: 7 minutes. Greta Thunberg’s How dare you UN speech, 4 minutes. Churchill’s We shall fight on the beaches: 6.5 minutes.
Now, before I go any further, let me just say: I love a good speech, I genuinely do, and I’ve sat through hundreds of hours of this particular flavour. A well-crafted toast can bring a room to tears, lift hearts, and stitch memories that will outlive the cake, and even the indigestion. But the best speeches are like your favourite songs: short enough that you want to play them again, not long enough that you’re checking your watch halfway through the bridge.
So why seven minutes? Why this specific, almost sacred number?
Here’s the science. Well, the observational wedding photographer kind of science.
Somewhere around minute four, the audience is still with you. They’re smiling, they’re nodding, they’re chuckling at that story about the groom and his run-in with a llama.
By minute five, they’re still with you, but some have started wondering whether the venue’s loos are on the left or the right in the entry lobby.
By minute six, someone at every table is fanning themselves with a dog-eared order of service, and a child has started drumming on a glass with a spoon.
Minute seven? That’s the tightrope moment. If you land it now, you’re a legend. You’ll get claps, cheers, even a tear or two. But if you push into minute eight and beyond, well, that’s when people start looking for an escape route.
Here’s the truth about speeches.
They’re not for you, they’re for everyone else. The job of the best man or maid of honour isn’t to read out the entire friendship back-catalogue. It’s to entertain. To uplift. To be that unexpected surprise between the main course and the dancing, not the reason the band has to cut a whole set later on.
Let me tell you what I see all too often. When someone stands up with nine pages of A4, you can hear the collective sigh in the room. You can see the chefs looking at the soufflé with mild panic, and if you’ve got a videographer, they’re booking an extra week’s paid editing time just to handle the over-wordy speech. A long speech is like a second sermon. It may be heartfelt, but most people stopped listening after the second “And so we come to…”
I’ve photographed 1000 weddings, and I can tell you, hand on heart, the best speeches don’t list things, they land things. They don’t try to be everything, they try to be one thing: memorable. And memorable doesn’t mean long.
Want some structure? Try this:
A warm hello (30 seconds)
A short, human story (2–3 minutes)
A gentle ribbing or two (1 minute)
A heartfelt sentiment (2 minutes)
A toast (30 seconds)
Seven minutes. Done.
If you can’t say what you want to say in that time, it might be worth asking, is this a speech, or a hostage situation with a fast-emptying bread roll basket? And here’s a tip: don’t read it word for word. Notes are good. Bullet points are better. But reading the whole thing off your phone like you’re narrating a sleep app? Not ideal. Be present. Be warm. Look up. Connect. Oh yes, and plan this masterpiece to a proper pace. Practise it out loud. Slowly, clearly.
And if you’re thinking, “But I’m not a natural speaker,” even more reason to keep it short. Nobody expects you to be a comedian or a TED Talk pro. They just want you to be sincere. Honest. Real. And, ideally, finished before carriages.
So, whether you’re the best man, the proud dad, a bride who’s decided to speak (and yes, you absolutely should if you want to), or even a couple together, think seven minutes. Not because it’s a rule, but because it’s a kindness.
And if you're still not convinced, remember this: no one, in the history of weddings, has ever stood up after a speech and said, “Do you know what? I wish that had been longer.”
Seven minutes. That’s the magic. Because nobody remembers the waffle. They remember the warmth.
And the cake. Always the cake.
