What is the longest speech you've witnessed as a wedding DJ?
My record is 40 minutes - twice this year.
In May, the speeches went so long that dancing was limited to 20 minutes before the venue shut down. Their timeline had scheduled 2 hours for dancing. The mother of the groom spoke for 40 minutes, and his brother went for 30.
Fast-forward to this past Friday, when the MCs from May were guests at this wedding. We recognized each other and got to talking about the May wedding, and inevitably about the long speeches. They asked if there's anything they could have done as MCs to step in and tell the mom & brother to wrap it up. I've always struggled with this, as it would be rude to cut someone off in the middle of a speech. On the other hand, it's incredibly rude to talk for that long, especially when they've been given firm instructions to limit their speeches to 10 minutes max (which is still too long, in my opinion).
Back to the Friday wedding: the FOB spoke for 40 minutes!! Then went directly into the father-daughter dance. I couldn't believe the nerve of this old man rambling on & on. Even his own wife got up to go to the washroom I approached the MCs from May and said, "Boy, you sure know how to pick 'em!" They couldn't believe it either.
Thankfully this venue didn't shut down early like the May venue, so there was plenty of time for dancing. But the room cleared out by 10:45! I honestly feel like the speech was to blame, as the energy in the room had been great up to that point. It was like a balloon slowly deflating for 45 minutes.
So back to my original question: What is the longest speech you've witnessed as a wedding DJ, or as a guest?
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