Best Man Speech for Your Best Friend, With 3 Examples

Good evening, everyone. My name is Wes. Trent and I grew up on neighboring farms outside of town, and I've called him "Captain" since the summer we were ten. Let me explain, because I can see his mother bracing herself.

That summer, Trent decided we were going to build a raft and sail it across his dad's stock tank. He drew plans. He named it the Mighty Something; we never settled on the second word. We used four pallets, a lot of baling twine, and a plastic lawn chair for the captain's seat. Trent sat in the chair. I pushed us off. We made it about nine feet before the whole thing folded in half, and Trent went down with the ship, still sitting in the lawn chair, still saluting.

He's been the Captain ever since. And the thing is, it fits. Trent has always been the one who decides we're doing something, draws up a plan, and takes the first seat. Usually it goes better than the raft. When my dad got sick my junior year, Trent drew up a plan for that too: who'd feed our cattle on which mornings. He took Mondays and Thursdays for a whole semester without being asked.

Then he met Alana, and for the first time in his life, the Captain asked somebody else to help steer. I watched it happen at their first Fourth of July together. He handed her the map for the drive to the lake, and he didn't argue once about the route. That's when I knew.

Alana, he picked well. You're steady where he's bold, and you laugh at him in exactly the right amount.

So please raise your glasses. To the Captain and his first mate. To Trent and Alana. May you always stay afloat.

Hi, everybody. I'm Dev. Isaac and I were assigned as roommates freshman year in room 412, which means I've known him since before he owned a single matching sock.

There's one thing you need to know about college Isaac. He had a whiteboard on our door, and every morning he wrote a "Fact of the Day" on it. People on our floor would stop on the way to class to read it. The problem was that most of the facts were wrong. He told an entire dorm that goldfish can't see the color red. He told them the Great Wall was built to keep out rabbits. He was confident every single time.

Our junior year, we had people over, and a girl from the third floor stopped at the whiteboard, read it, uncapped a marker, crossed out the fact, and wrote the correct one underneath. Then she signed it. That was Noor.

Isaac was not upset. Isaac was in love. He asked me that night if I thought it would be weird to leave the whiteboard alone for a week so he could keep her handwriting on it. I said yes, that would be weird. He left it up for a month.

Here's the real fact of the day. Isaac is the most loyal person I know. He has called me on my birthday every year since we were eighteen, and he has never once gotten the date wrong. Which is more than I can say for the goldfish.

Noor, thank you for correcting him, and for keeping him honest ever since.

Please raise your glasses. Fact of the day: these two belong together. To Isaac and Noor.

Good evening. I'm Brandon. Felix and I didn't grow up together. We didn't go to school together. Six years ago he moved in next door, knocked on my door, and asked to borrow a ladder. I got it back two years later.

So I don't have stories about Felix at twelve. I can't tell you what he was like in high school, though I've seen the photos and I have questions. What I can tell you about is Felix at thirty-four, which, conveniently, is the version June married.

That version of Felix is the guy who shows up. The spring my basement flooded, I texted the neighborhood group at five in the morning asking if anyone had a shop vac. Felix was standing in my basement in rubber boots before anyone else had replied. He also brought the ladder, which by then he considered his.

Around here, "the ladder" has become shorthand. When somebody needs something, we say "go borrow the ladder," meaning go ask Felix, because he'll say yes before you finish asking.

June, you saw that in him right away. You were the first person I ever saw him ask for help, on the day you two moved in together and he couldn't get the couch up the stairs. You told him to turn it on its side. It worked. He looked at you like you'd invented stairs.

We may have met as adults, Felix, but you've become one of the best friends I'll ever have.

Please raise your glasses. To Felix and June. May you always have good neighbors, and may you always return the ladder.