A best man speech for your best friend that does it justice.

Three opening lines you can use or adapt: 1. "Good evening. I'm Sam — Matt's best man, and, with absolutely no exaggeration, his oldest friend. We've known each other since we were seven years old. That's twenty-three years. For context, that's longer than most of you have known the bride." 2. "My name is Jack. Tom and I have been friends since university — fifteen years — which means I have enough material for a three-hour speech, and have been talked down to forty-five minutes. This is not what I agreed to." 3. "Good evening. I'm Callum. Will's best man and the person who received the phone call asking me to do this at 8pm on a Thursday, with about forty seconds of context and no opportunity to say no. Looking back, I respect the strategy." --- Full example speech: Good evening. I'm Sam — Matt's best man, and his oldest friend. We've known each other since we were seven years old. That's twenty-three years. For context, that's longer than most of you have known the bride. Being asked to be best man was the single greatest honour Matt has ever given me. Second only to the time he let me have the last slice of pizza in 2009. Here's what twenty-three years of friendship teaches you about a person: you get the full picture. The version of Matt that turns up to weddings in a good suit is real. But so is the version that once drove to four different Tesco stores looking for a specific flavour of crisps. Both are him. Both are what makes him extraordinary. Matt is one of the most genuinely kind people I have ever met. Not in a showy way. In the way where he checks in when you've gone quiet. In the way where he remembers what you've mentioned in passing. In the way where he quietly shows up. The day he told me about Emily, I knew immediately. Not because of what he said — because of what he didn't say. Matt talks constantly. He talks when he's nervous, when he's happy, when he's unsure. That day, he sat down, said "I met someone," and then just stopped. For someone who'd had plenty to say about every other relationship, that silence told me everything. Emily — you got the best version of one of the best people I know. And he got you. Please raise your glasses to Matt and Emily.