How Long Should Wedding Speeches Be?
How long should wedding speeches be? Three to five minutes each, and here is what every extra minute takes off the dinner service and the dance floor.
Each wedding speech should run 3 to 5 minutes. How long the speeches run in total is the number that decides your night, because in a sit-down reception they sit between two courses, and every minute over pushes the kitchen back. Easy Weddings recommends the 3 to 5 minute mark per speech, and a second Easy Weddings guide puts the absolute ceiling at 10.1
The dinner hour in our afternoon run sheet: the speeches get the half hour between the entree and the mains.
The speech block is the tightest half hour of the reception
In the afternoon run sheet PlannedBy ships, the entree is served at 6:30 PM, the speeches start at 7:00 PM with three speakers at five minutes each and the MC holding the clock, and the mains go out at 7:30 PM. The kitchen then works to 45 minutes from the first plate landing to the last one cleared.
So the speeches have 30 minutes, and the speaking is not the only thing in them. Three speeches at five minutes each is fifteen minutes of talking. The other fifteen go on the MC introducing each speaker, the microphone changing hands, and a full room settling twice.
That is where the block goes. Managing Matrimony's Australian run sheet guide pads 10 minutes between speakers for exactly this reason, calling under-padded transitions the biggest mistake couples make.3 Add that padding honestly and three five-minute speeches need 35 minutes, not 30. Either the speakers come in under five, or the handovers get tightened, or the mains are late.
What fifteen minutes over actually costs
The overrun does not land on the speeches. It lands at the end of the night, because the send-off time is already sold to the venue and the suppliers.
One Australian wedding DJ budgets the reception in blocks.2
| Block | Minutes |
|---|---|
| Dancing | at least 90 to 120 |
| Dinner service | 30 to 45 |
| Housekeeping and entrances | 10 |
| Welcome speech | 5 |
Dancing is the largest block and the last one, which makes it the one that pays for anything that ran long earlier.
One Australian DJ's block budget. Dancing is the biggest block and the last, so it absorbs every overrun.
Run the numbers on the shipped sheet. Last drinks are called at 10:45 PM and the send-off is at 11:00 PM. Go fifteen minutes long on the speeches and the mains land at 7:45 PM, the cake at 8:45 PM, the first dance at 9:00 PM, and the floor opens at 9:30 PM instead of 9:15 PM. The bar still closes at 11:00 PM, so the dance bracket comes back at 75 minutes rather than 90.
The template carries its own warning about it on the 7:15 PM row: three unwatched speeches become a 45 minute block and a cold main.
The same night twice. Fifteen minutes of extra speaking comes out of the dance floor, because the send-off stays put.
Read your own speech block off a real clock Put your ceremony time into the run sheet generator and it places the reception, the dinner and the speeches on actual times, so you can see what the block either side of them has to fit.
A longer night does not buy longer speeches
Leave the finish time blank in the generator and the day ends five hours after the reception starts. Dinner is placed 45 minutes in, the speeches at 90 minutes and the first dance at two and a half hours, and any beat landing after the finish time is dropped while the send-off is kept whatever else goes. Speaking longer therefore removes something later rather than extending the night.
Nor does the drinks hour help. Writing for a US audience, The Knot puts a reception at about five hours, one for cocktails and four for dinner and dancing.4 Zola, also US, puts the cocktail hour at 60 minutes and 90 at the outside.5 That hour sits before the couple walk in, so it adds nothing to the block the speeches live in. If you want to know what it does change, we covered the gap between the ceremony and the reception separately.
The three run sheets PlannedBy ships run five hours for the afternoon reception, three and a half for a lunch reception, and four hours fifty for a two-venue day, all measured from the couple walking in to the send-off. Give the same 30-minute speech block to the lunch reception and it is a seventh of the whole party instead of a tenth of it.
Common questions
How long should the best man or the maid of honour speak for? Three to five minutes, same as everyone else on the list. Easy Weddings puts the absolute ceiling at 10 minutes, and one 10-minute speech uses a third of the whole block on our afternoon sheet.1
How many speeches should a wedding have? No published figure sets a number. The afternoon run sheet we ship allows three speakers, which is what fits in the half hour between the entree and the mains with handovers included.
When in the reception should the speeches happen? Between the entree and the mains on the shipped sheet, starting at 7:00 PM. An earlier slot is a real option: the same Australian DJ budgets a 5-minute welcome speech straight after the entrances, before dinner service starts.2
Can the speeches go after dinner instead? They can, and the cost shows up on the floor. That DJ's budget wants at least 90 to 120 minutes of dancing at the end of the reception, and a speech block after the mains sits directly in front of it.2
What happens if the speeches run 20 minutes over? Everything after them moves by 20 minutes and the send-off stays where it is, so the dance floor is 20 minutes shorter and the cake is cut while the kitchen is still clearing.
Who should hold the clock? The MC. It is the one timing job on the shipped sheet with a named owner, sitting on the 7:00 PM speech row. A speaker cannot see the kitchen and will not stop themselves.
Do the speeches change how many hours the reception needs? No, and that is the point of pinning them. How many hours a wedding reception should be is set by the venue and the send-off, and the speech block has to fit inside it.
The one thing to do today
Write the speech block as named speakers with a start time and a finish time against each one, then hand that list to the MC. A list of names with no clock beside it is what turns fifteen minutes of talking into forty-five. Open the run sheet generator, type your ceremony time, and the speeches land on a real clock with the entree before them and the mains after them, in a run sheet every supplier can open. The rest of the free tools run off the same clock, and PlannedBy is paid once rather than monthly.