Pros & Cons Of Open Mic Toasts At Your Event
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By Adrian Cavlan
“Yeah I got something to say!” is how it started… and then the puckering and cringing became almost audible in themselves as the groom’s college buddy Pete grabbed the mic from the MC and started in.
Oh, it was a horror show.
In the three minutes that Pete commandeered the mic and held court, he said, oh, at least a half dozen things that the bride and groom only wished they could have hit the mute button on, but alas, the train had left the station. Pete was enough of a handful under normal circumstances, but they never considered that adding a little bourbon at cocktail hour would turn that train into a runaway locomotive!
“Man - why did we ever let ourselves think for even a minute that having an open mic at our wedding was a good idea?” the bride and groom wondered aloud.
But then there’s this:
“I’d like to say something,” said her grandfather as he stood up slowly, sizing up the audience through glasses that made his wise eyes look larger than life. He was a reluctant public speaker under most circumstances, but somehow this time seemed right and the atmosphere seemed perfect.
The whole room, filled with friends and family, gracefully and respectfully stopped their conversations and turned their attention on the beloved patriarch of the family.
The next three minutes were filled with treasures and stories that were shared with such grace, love and depth of spirit that the whole room simply sat in awe, and at the end, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. His words had perfectly captured the essence of the meaning of this wonderful day and the people whom it celebrated.
And when people looked back at their wedding day, they would say that besides the ceremony itself, this was perhaps its highlight.
The thing is, an open mic at your wedding is a chance you take. It can be one of the best parts of the day, but you have to be ok with the fact that there may be a lump or two in the gravy.
Visualize your guest list and what they might be like in this circumstance.
Visualize your guest list and ask yourselves if you think they will enjoy this portion of the day’s program if you did it this way.
Think about your MC: does he/she have the aura to be able to pull this off in the best possible way, in the end extracting the very best from it while also exuding an air of respect and control over the process enough that you don’t have to worry about it going way off course or way too long?
These are all important questions, of course, but the good news is that if you consider them, the answer to whether to have the open mic element at your wedding or not will become self-evident.
Good luck!