A person at your table says, “Just a few words, would you?” It’s a birthday. The last day of work for a colleague. Your cousin’s wedding. You don’t need a long speech. A short toast of a minute or so is enough. If you can structure your thoughts around four key points, you’re set. You say who you are to the guest of honor, you describe one true thing you’ve seen them do, you explain what that one moment tells you about the guest, and you share your good wishes for them as you raise your glass and take a sip.

Pick one specific, true detail

Generic praise is what makes so many eulogies and toasts so very forgettable. Saying that Jordan was kind and generous and always there for people could describe almost anyone. One small moment you witnessed gives the guests something they can picture.

Ordinary details about a person are typically going to be more memorable than praise. Therefore, try to choose a small, concrete moment you have seen yourself. The best way to choose something to say about a person is to ask yourself, what would I tell a stranger who asked me what this person is really like? Then look for the moment in your recollections of your relationship with the person that best exemplifies your answer to that question.

Finding the detail in two minutes

  1. Jordan

    Grandma's ninetieth is tonight. Would you say a few words? You've known her forever.

  2. Sam

    Sure. Give me a second to think of something real.

  3. Jordan

    You could just say she's wonderful.

  4. Sam

    Everyone will say that. I keep thinking about the summer she taught me to swim off the dock and wouldn't let me quit.

  5. Jordan

    That's so her.

  6. Sam

    Then that's the toast. Who I am, the dock, what it says about her, and a glass up to ninety more summers.

Run two quick checks on the detail you chose before sharing it with the rest of the table. First, is it true? Did you really see that happen? Second, would the guest of honor be proud to hear you share that story with this particular group of people? If the answer is no to either of those questions, then don’t share it. Avoid inside jokes that need explaining, past relationships, money, and anything that could be considered embarrassing to the guest of honor. If you share something that makes the guest of honor look or feel foolish, then you’ve done it wrong, even if the rest of the table is laughing.

Build the toast in four lines

Once you have identified the detail for your speech, the rest of your speech will simply be a frame around it. Try to keep each section to one sentence or two.

  1. Say who you are. One line, so guests who don’t know you can place you.
  2. Tell the detail. Describe the moment plainly, with a place or a time.
  3. Say what it shows. Connect the moment to the person in one sentence.
  4. Raise the glass with a wish. Look ahead to the future and finish by saying the person’s name to signal that everyone should be raising their glass and drinking.

A brief invented example: Sam is giving a farewell toast to Jordan, a colleague who is leaving. Sam opens with who he is:

Example message

I’m Sam, and I sat next to Jordan for three years.

Then the detail:

Example message

In my first week, Jordan saw I was lost in the budget spreadsheet and stayed late to walk me through it, without being asked.

Then what it shows, and the wish:

Example message

That’s who Jordan is, the person who notices. To Jordan, and to whoever gets to sit next to you next.

It takes about a minute or less to read these aloud.

Make the four-line toast yours

I'm [your name], and I [how you know them]. [One moment you saw them have]. That's who [their name] is, [what the moment shows]. To [their name], and [your wish for them].

How you know them

One short clause guests can place: years worked together, college roommate, neighbor.

One moment you saw

Something you witnessed yourself, with a time or place. Skip anything embarrassing or that needs backstory.

What the moment shows

A few words naming the quality, such as the person who notices or the one who never quits.

Your wish

Fit it to the occasion: the year ahead, the new job, both partners, or the people at the table.

There’s good detail here about the author of this toast who sat next to Jordan for three years, and then a very specific moment of a good deed from Jordan towards that author in the detail. The closing name tells the room when to clink their glasses together for a toast to the speaker’s colleague who is leaving. If yours is longer than that, you can always rework the detail to include only one moment.

Adjust it for the occasion

The four-line structure works for all of these events. The only things that change are the last line of the toast and the amount of warmth that the group of people in front of you expects.

  • Birthday: look ahead to the coming year. Do not make age-related jokes unless you know the person will enjoy them.
  • Farewell: Say what you will miss about the person leaving and then wish them well at their new location.
  • Wedding, as a guest: include both partners in the wish, even if you only know one of them well.
  • Dinner or Reunion: Toast the host or the reason you are there for the dinner or reunion.

For a wedding where you mostly know one half of the couple, the detail and the wish could read something like this:

Example message

I’ve watched you plan every trip down to the minute, and tonight is the first time I’ve seen you happy to forget the schedule. To the two of you.

No need to polish if you only just found out you are speaking. Choose a detail and an ending, and let the middle of the speech be a little rough. A short speech with one detail can carry a few stumbles in the middle of the speech.

Handle the nerves before you stand

It’s common to feel nervous before speaking in front of people1. Instead of trying to calm yourself down, try reappraising your anxiety as excitement. Lab research supports this. In a number of experiments, people who sang karaoke, gave speeches or did math problems under anxiety were told to reappraise their feelings as being excited instead. They felt more excited and performed better than people who tried to calm down1. The strategies were minimal, such as saying “I am excited” out loud1. Note that these studies were not done in real-life situations such as at a party or event where a person gives a toast. But it’s cheap to try.

Just say “I’m excited!” under your breath a few times before you get up there. Rehearse the first and last lines of the toast to yourself as well. Then you can always go straight to the end of the toast if you get lost in the middle.

If the toast wobbles

Your mind goes blank after the first line

Skip to your memorized last line, raise the glass and say the name.

You hear yourself adding a second story

Stop after the sentence you are on and go to the wish.

Your voice shakes on the opening

Keep going at the same pace. The toast is a minute long and the detail carries it.

You finish the last line

Drink and sit down. You are done.

Stand up, raise the glass and finish

Standing up to give a toast is quick and can be over within a minute. A good way to start off is to wait for a natural pause in the conversation and then stand up and raise your glass to about chest height. From this point on you can refer to your notes on your phone and read the three words “three years, spreadsheet, notices” and then finish off by saying “to Jordan” and then drinking and sitting back down.

A card with the four words, or even a note on your phone that reads the four words, is sufficient for the toast. Glance down at it a few times between sentences, then away. For the last line, raise your glass to them, make eye contact and say their name. Drink, then sit down. Remember that the name is the signal to the others that you have finished.

What to do with your hands and eyesTap each point to see one part of standing up to give the toast.
Sam, a penguin in round glasses and a coral tie, stands at a dinner table holding a glass at chest height and a small card in his other flipper while Jordan, seated, looks up at him.
  1. Glass at chest height

    Hold the glass at about chest height while you talk so your face stays visible. Raise it higher only on the final line.

  2. A card with a few words

    A few words on a card or phone are enough. Glance at them between sentences.

  3. Eyes on the person

    Look at the person you're toasting while you tell the detail, then look around the table for the wish.

Practice it once out loud

Read your own work. Before you head off to the event, practice reading your completed speech out loud in full. If it runs over a minute then cut back from the middle and, providing you have still included the essential part of the story that inspired the speech in the first place, it will still sound great. Whilst silent reading of written work can mask weak spots in a toast, the same weak spots will be very apparent when reading aloud in front of the mirror.

Practice your toast with a scene partner in Quippy if you want a run-through before the actual occasion.

Sources and references

  1. Brooks, A. W. (2014). Get excited: Reappraising pre-performance anxiety as excitement. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(3), 1144-1158.Lab experiments with karaoke singing, public speaking and math tasks comparing people told to reappraise nerves as excitement with people told to calm down; sample sizes and effect sizes are not reported here, and toasts at real events were not studied.