Giving a Speech with a Stutter

Hello friends! It’s been a minute. My sister just got married, (woot woot! Congratulations sis!) and the wedding was crazy! Exciting, stressful, emotional…all the feels! I was basically running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off before and during the wedding (you could say I took my Maid of Honor duties pretty seriously, ha!). But everything turned out absolutely beautiful. It was so heartwarming seeing our two families merge as one and celebrating with our closest relatives and friends. I’ve included a few pictures that I snapped with my phone, so take a look as you read about my experience giving a speech with a stutter!

One of the things that stressed me out a lot was the thought of giving a speech. Of course when my sister asked if I wanted to give one, I immediately said yes without a second thought. I knew I had to give a special speech to my sister and her now husband (eek, I love saying “her husband” now!). When planning it out, I thought about the wedding planning process, what it was like, and the laughs that came out of it so I could use more meaningful content. I went the comedic route with my speech, and despite being super nervous no one would laugh at my jokes, I had the entire audience cracking up! My sister had tears in her eyes from laughing so hard. If that’s not a win in my life, I dunno what is!

So, how did I prepare for this speech? Welp, I practiced a bunch with my boyfriend, best friend and also talked about it with my speech therapist. We discussed what a measure of success would be for my speech and decided that if I could say everything I wanted to say without skipping through things to avoid stuttering, I will have done an awesome job. We also talked about taking a “stuttering bath” before my speech. That consisted of open stuttering/voluntary stuttering as much as possible to desensitize to stuttering in case (more like evidently when) I had a moment. It was hard, but well worth it. I practiced obnoxiously long stutters with my boyfriend (god bless his patience!) and felt more confident going into the weekend.

But, as the time drew closer, I began to freak out and had nervous pit in my stomach the whole day we were getting ready. Right before my speech, I was physically shaking I was so nervous! As soon as I got the mic to give my speech, you know what happened?

Everything was perfectly calm.

It was so bizarre! This wave of calmness just came over me as I stood up and looked around the room. I think that second I spent scanning the room really helped calm me down because I could see how many wonderful people were there who wouldn’t judge me at all. And you betcha, I had a nice, big moment of open stuttering right at the beginning of my speech -and I still remained calm! I continued talking and putting thought into every word I said and luckily the audience loved my jokes. (I won’t say what exactly I said because it was a special moment just for my sister and her husband, but I will tell you I had some great lines from Bridesmaids, The Hangover, Game of Thrones, and The Office!).

So many people come up to me and told me how much they loved my speech which was so nice to hear. I knew that they liked my speech because of the content and not the delivery. Even if I stuttered the entire way through, I KNOW those people would have still loved my speech. I mean, the jokes were just too good if I do say so myself, haha!

This experience taught me one incredibly valuable lesson about stuttering; remembering who your audience is. In the midst of freaking out about public speaking, take a second and remember…who is the public? Who are you addressing? What do they want to hear from you? In this case, the audience was family and friends who loved my sister, her husband, and our families, and they wanted to hear a special message about the bride and groom. Once I remembered that I felt so dumb for freaking out so much. Of course this audience didn’t care about my stutter, they just wanted a speech that wasn’t long and boring!

Thanks for reading this super long post! I felt all the happy emotions while writing this *insert blushing emoji*. Have any of you ever given a speech at a wedding? If so, I’d love to hear your experiences!