There's a spreadsheet somewhere on Hannah's laptop called "Wedding – FINAL FINAL v9." I've seen it. It has seventeen tabs. One tab is just fonts. So when she asked me to be her maid of honor, I knew what I was signing up for: unpaid project management.
I'm Priya, by the way, and I've known Hannah since we were eleven, when she corrected our science teacher's grammar mid-experiment and got detention for being right.
That's the thing about Hannah. She has never once let being right go quietly.
Which is why the rest of us were genuinely baffled when she started dating Tom. Tom, who once tried to assemble a bookshelf without reading the instructions and ended up with a small wooden coffin. Tom, who orders "whatever looks good" and means it.
And somehow — it works. I watched it click one rainy Tuesday three years ago. Hannah's car wouldn't start, she was furious, and Tom didn't fix it or explain it or Google it. He just stood in the rain holding an umbrella over the engine like it had feelings. She laughed. Hannah, mid-meltdown, laughed.
That's when I stopped worrying.
Because Hannah spent years building a life where everything was controlled, labelled, and colour-coded. And Tom is the one person who can walk into all that order and make her put the spreadsheet down. He doesn't calm her chaos — he gives her permission to have some.
Hannah, you are the sharpest, fiercest, most loyal person I know, and I have loved being in your corner for twenty years. Tom, you make her softer without ever making her smaller. That's rare. Don't lose it.
So raise your glasses — to Hannah and Tom. To umbrellas over engines, to plans that fall apart beautifully, and to a marriage that never needs a v9.
Talk through your stories and we'll shape them into a funny maid of honor speech that's unmistakably yours — in minutes.
Make it mine →This speech leads with humor — but it's warm humor, not stand-up comedy. The laughs create trust with the audience, which makes the sincere moments at the end hit harder.
At 303 words, it proves you don't need length to make an impact. Every line earns its place.
If you're not sure how to start your own version, it's often easier to talk your speech out first and shape it into a structured version. You can also explore our guide to writing a wedding speech for a step-by-step approach.
Talk through your stories and let Nail The Speech turn them into a maid of honor speech that sounds like you.
Create Your Speech →When Priya was seven, she made me sign a contract in glitter gel pen promising I'd be her best friend "forever, and also at her wedding." I lost that contract in about 1998.
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the wedding of [Bride's name] and [Groom's name]. You may have seen me everywhere today - probably because I've been panicking in the background! Now...
I've known Niamh since she was six years old. Back then, she was the girl who insisted on dressing like a Spice Girl, even on school photo day. Since then, she's been my...