Like the best things in life, landing a truly good joke is incredibly rewarding, yet terribly difficult to achieve. Best man speech writing put this challenge into sharp relief: You are not a professional comedian (at least we don't think you are), but everyone at that wedding will expect you to be funny. How can you reconcile this? How can you ensure that the wedding guests are hearing a good-natured, humorous toast to a dear friend and his chosen mate for life, and not a buh-dum-dum-pshhh evening at the Improv? Most important: How do you move inside jokes to the outside, giving them relevance beyond the barstools or dorm rooms from whence they came?
Many of the jokes-or even stories-in a best man speech are necessarily of the inside variety. Inside jokes and personal anecdotes often form the core of relationships, providing code words and mental scrapbooks that create the unique bond you share with the man you are about to celebrate-the folklore of your friendship. Like all good folklore, it's time to pass some of yours down, only this time to a large audience, half of whom may barely know you or your buddy. There are keys to making this work, and to avoiding a crowd stunned in silence, while only you and the groom laugh hysterically about that one time you guys wore a hair net and roller skates and …
The first key is universality. Every good story has a theme that can be applied to everyone. Everyone's had one too many tequila poppers in the past; everyone's had some klutzy injury; everyone's been embarrassingly aflutter in the early days of meeting his significant other; everyone's put on a hair net and roller skates and … Basically, if you are telling a story from your past, make sure to give some context that universalizes it. If there are characters in the story in the crowd, point them out. Make the story visible with your words and your gestures, and make it general and relatable in its telling. With good context, your audience will be too busy laughing and thinking back to a time when, yes, they too were that stupid or that drunk or that in much love. "You had to be there" is an unacceptable exit strategy; it is your job to make sure they are there.
Just don't embarrass anyone too much. It's typically not enjoyable for the groom, his new wife, or the assembled (now unsettled) masses to be squirming after some inappropriate story. It'll ruin the joyous mood of the occasion, create awkward tension in what should be a carefree environment, and, perhaps most important, also provide fodder for when he has to speak at your wedding. If anything, don't open yourself up to revenge.
On this site, there are plenty of good examples of artful (and funny) stories and jokes to use as templates-and plenty more advice about how to make them work. It is said that the human mind is hard-wired to hear, and enjoy, stories. So the more effective you can be at relaying stories in a way that makes them a natural part of a wider message about the bride and groom, the more into your speech everyone will be. It's never easy to make people laugh, but, with this advice, and the resources on this site, it has also never been easier. And you won't even have to whip out the hair net and the roller skates and…