6 public-speaking lessons from a retired (online) minister
You think ‘until death do you part’ is pressure? I’m just trying to get through to cocktail hour. Here are speechifying tips from the unlikeliest of wedding officials.
Welcome to my life.
However, in one of the more recent instances, I knew exactly whom to blame for the mess—my roommate. She suggested to our friend, a bride-to-be, that I officiate her wedding.
“It only takes a couple of minutes online,” she said. “Can you imagine? What a hoot that’d be!”
Well, dear readers, we needn’t imagine any longer.
About a month later, the bride-to-be requested I brush up on my biblical references, don my best white collar, and officially join the holy ranks as a man of the cloth.
Wait—is it too late to suggest being the 25-year-old ring bearer? Flower man, even?
Being the pushover bull-by-the-horns kind of friend I am, I agreed. And while it wouldn’t be my first crack at public speaking, it would be my first presiding over a wedding. So what did I take away following the big nuptials?
(SPOILER ALERT: It wasn’t the garter. Thank God.)
Instead, I left the ceremony with some tips that will help any reluctant public speaking virgin who got thrown under a bus was eager to give it the old college try.
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