Struggling with your Wedding Speech?Posted by Kim Rix on July 27th, 2010

Dear friends,

Are you trying to write a wedding speech, and wondering where to begin or what to say? Feeling frustrated? Well, I know someone who would be absoutely delighted to help you, even if it’s just a bit of friendly advice over the phone  - he’s a professional speech writer in London.

I met Laurence and Anna (they’re business partners) earlier this year. We had a super conversation about Wedding Speech Etiquette.  Well, to cut a long story short, I asked Laurence to give me some tips, to help my Grooms with their speech delivery, and here’s what he came back with:

Do

Talk slowly. If it takes 12 minutes, not nine, it doesn’t matter at all.
Pause for effect. Your audience need time to digest the story before they get the punchline. So give them time to get it.
Emphasise key words. Imagine you’re telling a story without a script. You’ll say some words louder than most. And change your inflection on others.
Practise. However well written the speech, you don’t want to be ‘reading’ it. Know it well enough that it just becomes a safety net.
Gesticulate. Body language is vital. If you’re addressing someone, look at them. Use your arms to emphasise a point.

Don’t

Be put off by a heckle. You can pre-prepare a couple of responses to a noisy member of the crowd.

Give in to the shakes. Paste your speech onto card. Or rest it somewhere you can see it. Find out if there’s a lectern. Holding a shaky piece of paper will put you off before you get going.

Get drunk beforehand. It may feel like the easy way to get through it, but it won’t seem so sensible afterwards.
Just read it out. Great material is irrelevant if it’s delivered badly. You’ll be much more natural when you’re not reading straight from the page.

There’s plenty more helpful advice about preparing and delivering a wedding speech on Laurence’s web site. Visit www.greatspeechwriting.co.uk.

All the best,

Kim Rix

Your London Wedding Planner

“Freeing up your time”

Top Tips: How to Prolong the life of your Wedding FlowersPosted by Kim Rix on July 14th, 2010

Dear Bride & Groom,

A couple of weeks ago I coordinated a fabulous wedding reception event in East London.  If you’re a Londoner or here on holiday, you’ll know that the weather has been absolutely sizzling for the last few weeks – not your typical UK Summer temperatures, as last experienced in July 2006. So, when I was informed that the wedding flowers were being collected from Covent Garden Flower Market more than 36 hours in advance of the wedding event, I felt somewhat uneasy. So I decided to ask Elizabeth Marsh, an award-winning florist, what she advises Brides about “how to prolong the life of your flowers and make sure they are at their best for your wedding or special event”.  Here’s her response:

“A gas called ethylene, which is colourless and odourless, is produced by the old flowers and vegetables, amongst others, and can significantly reduce the life of your flowers.  It is important therefore to keep flowers away from fruit and vegetables (eg the fruit bowl might be out of bounds), smoke in the atmosphere etc and make sure that storage areas for the flowers are well ventilated.  It also helps to keep them cool, as this reduces their sensitivity to ethylene.

Insects and disease can also affect flowers, especially an infection called ‘gray mould’ which can result if the flowers become wet, for example if too many flowers are crammed into one bucket on a hot day and the flowers sweat and so become damp.  If the flowers are left in a box, eg for transportation purposes, and that box is left in the heat at all, once it cools down the condensed moisture could well result in spoilage. Finally, storing flowers for too long even under the correct conditions can also leave the flowers susceptible to gray mould.  One other factor that renders flowers prone to infection is damage when conditioning them.  For this reason always use a sharp knife to cut the stems, handle the heads as little as possible, and be careful not to hold them too tightly.

As cut flowers are removed from the source of food that has sustained them so far, adding a little sugar to the water whilst conditioning them will help to boost them, although after a few hours it might be best to remove them from the sugar solution and put them in plain water.  The addition of sugar can enable the buds to develop properly, attain larger sizes and last longer.  However be careful not add too much sugar as this can damage the foliage on some flowers. 

Some flowers, especially some tropical varieties can sustain chilling damage if refrigerated, so be careful with anthuriums, gerberas, heliconias bouvardia, orchids, birds of paradise etc– these might be better left out of the fridge (if you have one).

Finally, dirty water in the vase or the bucket will produce algae which are sucked up the flower stem and cause blockages so that the flower cannot drink water any more.  To keep the water clean, change it daily, recut the stems each time to remove the initial stages of rot from the tips and possibly add a little bleach.

These are just a few of the things you can do to ensure you have perfect flowers for your special occasion.”

Source: Dr J. N. Sacalis: commercial floral design

Your London Wedding Planner

Freeing up your time and delivering the personal service