Wedding Toast Speech Writer: Timed, Specific, and Safe for the Room

Prompt

Act as a speechwriter for a wedding (or similar toast) who has saved people from rambling and from jokes that land as insults. You write for the room, the clock, and the couple. You do not invent cute memories.

Inputs:
- Speaker role: [Best man / maid of honor / parent / friend / colleague]
- Couple or honorees: [Names]
- How I actually know them: [Relationship]
- Real stories I can tell: [Stories]
- Tone: [Warm / funny / short and earnest / mix]
- Time cap: [2 min / 3 min / 5 min]
- Room: [Kids present / boss present / ex in the room / multilingual]
- Must include: [Must include]
- Must never say: [Must never]
- Inside jokes that need a gloss: [Jokes]
- Logistics: [Mic, reading vs memory, toast at end with what drink]

Generate:
1. Risk pass: List jokes, stories, or details that will hurt someone in this Room even if they are true. Cut or rewrite. Name the cut.
2. Spine: One sentence that is the speech (not "they are great"). Then a 3-beat outline: how I know them, one story, why they work as a pair, toast.
3. Full speech: Write it to the Time cap (about 130 words per minute, so 2 min ~ 250 words, 3 min ~ 390, 5 min ~ 650). Spoken sentences. Use only Stories. Gloss any inside joke in one clause. End with a toast line that uses Names and is short enough to repeat after a drink.
4. 90-second emergency cut: If the DJ is waving you down.
5. Delivery notes: Where to pause, where not to look at notes, what to do with a laugh that runs long, whether to read or memorize given Logistics.
6. Line you should not say: The tempting closer or roast that will age badly. Write the replacement.
7. If I cry / blank: A 3-line fallback I can read from my phone.

Constraints:
- Do not invent college stories, meet-cutes, or quotes from the couple.
- No "we are gathered here today." No "soulmates" unless Speaker actually talks like that. Ban stacked adjectives.
- Do not out private facts (money, IVF, sobriety, legal trouble) unless Must include says to, and even then keep it one careful line.
- Honor Must never.
- Humor punches up or at yourself, not at the couple's parents, bodies, exes, or jobs.
- One toast. Sit down.

Instructions

Replace every [bracket] with your details before running. Works on ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.

Examples

Example Input

Speaker role: Best man
Couple or honorees: Jordan and Alex
How I actually know them: College roommate of Jordan's for 2 years; have been on a weekly Thursday board-game night with both of them for 6 years
Real stories I can tell: Jordan once spent 40 minutes explaining a board-game rule to Alex on night one; Alex still sat down the next Thursday. They cook Sunday pasta in a too-small kitchen and argue about salt like it is policy. Jordan flew overnight after a work trip to make Alex's gallery opening and slept on the gallery floor during setup. I do not have a "how they met" story of my own.
Tone: Mix, more warm than roast
Time cap: 3 min
Room: Kids present (two nieces ~8), boss not present, no ex issue, English only
Must include: thank Alex's parents for the dinner; thank Jordan's sister for the playlist
Must never say: anything about an old breakup of Jordan's; any drinking-contest stories; last names of people who did not want to be mentioned
Inside jokes that need a gloss: "the salt summit" = their Sunday pasta salt argument
Logistics: handheld mic, I will read from a card, toast with sparkling water because I am DD

Example Output

1. Risk pass
Cut any breakup material (Must never). Cut drinking contests. Do not name people who asked not to be named. The gallery-floor nap is fine; it is care, not a roast. Salt argument is fine if it is affection, not "Alex cannot cook." Kids in the room: keep language clean, which this already is.

2. Spine
They keep showing up, on Thursdays and on the hard nights.
Beats: I am the roommate who became the third chair at board-game night. Story: first rules explainer, then the gallery overnight. Why they work: patience plus follow-through. Toast.

3. Full speech (~3 min)
"I am Jordan's college roommate, which is a polite way to say I have lost six years of Thursday nights to board games with these two.

The first Thursday Alex came over, Jordan spent forty minutes on one rule. Forty. I wanted to skip to playing. Alex did not. Alex sat there, learned the rule, and came back the next week. That is the whole relationship in one scene: Jordan will make the world precise, and Alex will stay long enough for it to matter.

They still do this on Sundays. They cook pasta in a kitchen that is too small and hold a salt summit, which is our name for a very serious argument about salt. It sounds petty. It is actually the same skill. They take a small thing seriously together and then they eat.

The part that gets me is not a game. Jordan got off a red-eye and went straight to Alex's gallery opening, then slept on the gallery floor during setup so the show would open on time. That is not a grand speech. That is a calendar. Love is a calendar you keep.

Thank you to Alex's parents for this dinner. Thank you to Jordan's sister for the playlist, which is doing more work than I am.

Jordan and Alex: may you keep showing up on Thursdays, on Sundays, and on the nights when the flight lands late. To Jordan and Alex."

4. 90-second emergency cut
Roommate. Forty-minute rule. Alex came back. Pasta salt summit. Red-eye to the gallery. Thanks to Alex's parents and Jordan's sister. "To Jordan and Alex." Sit down.

5. Delivery notes
Read the card. Pause after "Forty." Pause after "Love is a calendar you keep." If the salt line gets a laugh, wait once, do not add a second joke. Hold the mic at your chest, not in front of your mouth. Toast with the sparkling water at the last line; do not drink until people lift.

6. Line you should not say
Tempting: any "Jordan used to date..." or "wait until you live together" joke. Replacement: the gallery calendar line. It is specific and it does not punch them.

7. If I cry / blank
"I am Jordan's roommate. They keep showing up. To Jordan and Alex." Then sit.