Probably the greatest myth about eulogies is that they are supposed to be sad or somber in tone. Nothing could be further from the truth!

As a matter of fact, if someone were to deliver a tearful, depressing eulogy I would be the first to criticize their work.

A eulogy is a celebration of life. If you ever read the obituary section of the newspaper you will notice that obituaries are not depressing. An obituary will give a brief summary of one’s life. It will highlight family, career and significant accomplishments. An obituary is similar in tone and content to what one would expect of an eulogy. If you’re struggling with what to write in a eulogy, simply peruse the obituary sections and see what type of information is relevant.

Most obituaries follow a chronological format starting with the first paragraph mentioning where the person was born and when. The last paragraph will usually talk about the person’s illness that a brought about an end to life.  Both of these two elements are unnecessary in a eulogy. However, the rest of the content in an obituary is similar to what you would find in a well crafted eulogy.

As you go through various obituaries, you will notice that there is usually one or two interesting stories about the deceased. Maybe it is how he took a trip to India in the 1960′s to study transcendental meditation. Maybe it is a story about how he met his wife while singing in the church choir.

For some people, their careers are important and you might want to highlight career achievements. However, if someone simply “worked to live” there would be little sense in writing a long paragraph about an unimportant career.

For many people, family is of utmost importance and you might want to mention how the deceased sacrificed other passions in order to spend more quality time with the family.

As you read through obituaries, you will notice that the information in an eulogy is similar in that both are celebrations of life and far from depressing.

I was recently at a funeral where several people were asked to say a few words about the departed.  I was disappointed as most people seemed to ramble during the eulogy speech. I wondered if the reason for the unfocused eulogy speech was due to nerves or because the speakers were simply unprepared.

Since eulogy speeches seem to bring some much trouble for so many people, I thought I would go over some of the basics.

First of all, the eulogy speech is a celebration of life. It is not meant to be depressing. I have even witnessed eulogy speeches given for people who have died young and the eulogy speech is almost always positive. You are not lamenting the death but rather highlighting the life that was lived.

Secondly, every eulogy speech should be properly edited. I was appalled at the speeches I heard at the memorial because it seemed to me that the speakers wanted to cram in 70 stories about the 70 years that the deceased had lived. Instead, speakers need to focus on one or two stories especially when giving a eulogy speech that will be followed by several other eulogies.

Thirdly, keep your eulogy speech short. I spoke with a man after the speeches and he complained about how everyone seemed to talk for ever without actually saying anything.  Shorter speeches are almost always better than longer speeches. Why not just tell one story that highlights some characteristics or qualities about the deceased? I think that most people feel overwhelmed when they brainstorm before their speech because they have so many wonderful memories that they want to share with the audience. However, I’m starting to think that the key to a good eulogy speech is actually in the editing and not the writing.

After you have brainstormed a few pages of ideas for your eulogy speech, I would recommend that you cut 80% of the ideas. Forget about them. Don’t try to cram too much information in your speech and simply focus on your most relevant material.

A eulogy is a difficult time in your life. Obviously you have lost someone close to you. You may be feeling grief, sadness or even anger. Subsequently, you are concerned that you will “lose it” during the eulogy.  The last thing that you want to do is to start breaking down and crying in front of dozens of people.

In this blog post, I’m going to outline some tricks of the trade used to control your emotions during a eulogy.

First of all, I like to think of eulogies as speeches on steroids. What I mean by this is that all of the rules of speech writing and preparation apply 10X in the case of eulogies.

Preparation is the key to controlling your emotions. The more you prepare by way of practicing your speech the less like you are to start crying.

Another tip that I use is to focus eye contact on certain people who are strangers and who are not crying. In other words, an emotional breakdown can be induced when you look at someone that you care about. I remember when a man made eye contact with his sobbing brother during a eulogy for their mother. As soon as he made eye contact it was as if he was overtaken by a torrent of tears.

Thus, if you make eye contact with someone who was merely an acquaintance of the deceased, you stand a greater chance of keeping your emotions in check.

Lastly, do not feel embarrassed if you start to tear up during the eulogy. This is normal. What you would like to avoid is total emotional breakdown.

As you brainstorm material for your eulogy you should consider the tone of your speech. Contrary to popular opinion, a eulogy does not have to be somber. In fact, some of the best eulogies are light hearted in tone. I generally like to relate the tone of the eulogy to the deceased. In other words, if the deceased was a joker than I feel more comfortable writing humor. However, if you are writing a eulogy for someone who was not particularly known for their sense of humor, it might be difficult to add humor.

Another eulogy tip is that you should try to think in terms of specific stories. The tendency for most amateur writers is to be vague. What this means is that you list qualities instead of showing the audience these qualities. In writers circles, the expression is “show me, don’t tell me.” Show the audience who the deceased was by adding colorful stories with lots of details.

What you don’t want to do is write a sentence like this:

“My uncle John was courageous, sincere, generous, fun loving and always supportive of my goals.”

The reason why this sentence is ineffective is that it is too vague. It is boring for the audience to listen to a list of qualities.

You would want to write supporting material for a quality that your uncle John exemplified.

For example, you would write something like:

“Uncle John supported my goal to attend the Juilliard School of Arts in New York city. He took me to ballet practice when my father was away on business and he even helped me raise money for tuition by hosting a fund raiser at his office.”

My last eulogy tip is how much time you should devote to rehearsing. You can write a eulogy fit for a president but if the speech is poorly delivered it won’t matter.  Eulogies are traditionally seven minutes and I would recommend two hours of rehearsal time. You’ll be practicing your conversational tone, your eye contact and body language. As you read the eulogy aloud you will also notice a lot of sentences that do not sound right.

If you’re still looking for more information about how to craft a perfect speech, check out our eulogy package that features thirteen speeches.

Now that the fall semester is coming to a close many of you may be in a position where you need to write a birthday speech. Like any speech, you’re probably wondering what to say and how to say it.

First of all they are to people who might be delivering a birthday speech. It might be the person who is toasting birthday person. For example, a mother might deliver a speech for her daughter on her 18th b-day. The second type of person who might be delivering the speech is the actual celebrant. For example, if a person is celebrating their 50th and a party has been thrown for them they would most likely deliver a speech.

In this blog post I’m wanna highlight the key components of every birthday speech which should make it vastly easier for you to write and deliver touching words from the heart.

You can take a look at this birthday sample speech that should give you a good idea of what a proper birthday speech  should look like.

1. Thank everyone who helped put the party together.  You want to mention people by name here.
2. there is most likely going to be one person that you will focus on. For example, if somebody for their 18th or 21st birthday they usually spend two or three paragraphs talking about what a positive influence their parents have been in their life. Similarly, if someone is delivering a 50th they usually think their spouse or children and have some kind words about the impact that these people have had in their life.
3. you also might want to include some funny quotes about aging that are common in birthday speeches

The final thing that I would like to mention is that you want to keep your speaking time below 5 to 7 minutes.

One of the more helpful tools for writing a birthday speech is to start by using a template. You can take a look at birthday speech templates that make it easy for you to mix and match different parts of the sample speeches which can save a tremendous amount of time.

One of the more difficult types of speeches to write and deliver it to retirement speech. The reason for this of course is that most people in the course of their life only retire once. Unless of course you’re Michael Jordan:)

What this means is that most people have no experience with writing a retirement speech. Commonly this causes a lot of nervousness. Who do I thank? How do I avoid offending colleagues and superiors? How long should the speech be?

Once you learn the speech structure you’ll learn that a retirement speech is no difference than any other type of special occasion speech whether it be a wedding speech or a birthday speech.

First of all, you want to take a sentimental look back at your experience with the organization. You want to include a funny story and specifically mention your  mentors and colleagues. Who were the people who helped you along the way? Of course, it is impossible to mention everybody especially if we’re talking about a 30 year career at one organization but you definitely want to mention the one or two people who helped you understand your role and the business.

Secondly, you want to talk about what you have learned over the years. Talk about your misconceptions before entering the workforce. Were you especially naive? Do you have any funny stories about your screw-ups. Everybody loves a retirement speech with a funny story especially when it’s at your expense!

You also want to talk about how you have become a better person because of the organization. Even if you don’t believe, this is something that you are expected to say.

Finally, retirement speeches should mention what you plan on doing in the future. Boating? Living in Costa Rica? Update your colleagues on what you plan to do next.

If you want to get an example of some retirement speech templates you can view our speech library. This will give you an idea with some sample speeches of what your speech should look like.

There’s plenty of advice out there about writing eulogies. Most writers focus on what we ought of do, and why we should get it done. While that is nice and correct, needed, it is not always enough. Every now and then we also need to know just what to avoid. We need to understand what to prevent, and why avoid it.

This article can help you with the way to write a proper eulogy. It helps not by telling you what you should do. It may help by instructing you on five things you’ll want to avoid if you want to write a eulogy.

Having said that, here are the 5 things you should avoid:

1. Don’t make the eulogy too somber. The reason you ought not do that is that a eulogy is a celebration of life. Don’t be afraid of using a little bit of  humor. Instead, it would actually be better should you want to celebrate the deceased.

2. Don’t deliver a boring chronology of the person’s life. The main reason you will want to do this is because you don’t want to bore the audience. Instead, it would be better if you simply added a little bit of color by telling a few interesting stories. However, you don’t need to go through the person’s life in order.

3. Don’t use too many cliche expressions. Clearly this is to avoid sounding like you are using “canned” material. And what you want to be doing instead is add originality to your speech.

4. Don’t just deliver facts about the deceased. The reason is clearly that you are trying to show that you knew the person. And so you need to observations and anecdotes that many people in the audience won’t know.

5. Don’t speak forever. It will always be a temptation to do this but you will bore the audience and a long eulogy will take away from your central message. Instead, you should invariably remember that a eulogy should be delivered in under ten minutes.

For those who carefully avoid these 5 common errors and accept the suggestions offered for alternatives instead, your chances of success and your rewards received are going to be much better than they otherwise would.

Wedding Anniversary Speeches are most commonly delivered by a close friend or family member of the happy couple.

In this article, I’m going to outline how to brainstorm topics for a wedding anniversary speech that is touching and entertaining.

1. Highlight the milestone in their life. For example, if the wedding anniversary speech is for a twenty five year anniversary you certainly want to emphasize the milestone.
2. How did the couple meet? There is almost always a comical or interesting story behind the first meeting. Was your friend nervous? What was his first impression of her? What did she think of him? You can also talk about the thoughts that went through your mind when you first saw the couple together.
3. Another wedding anniversary speech idea is talk about the person who was critical in bringing the couple together. This does not have to be a story about a “set-up” per se, but there is usually one friend or family member who helped spark the romance.
4. You can always add a little humor to your speech. For some ideas on wedding anniversary speech humor, you can refer to our wedding speech humor ideas.
5. Congratulate the couple on projects that they have completed together. No, I don’t mean assembling IKEA furniture! Often couples have big projects that they are especially proud of. Try to think of charity projects, long trips they have taken together, or any other big projects that they audience might be interested in.
6. In a wedding anniversary speech you want to express gratitude to the person who organized the celebration. Thank any helpers who were especially important.
7. Did the couple have a cottage or favorite vacation destination? Can you think of any funny stories centered around their travels?
8. In a wedding anniversary speech you can also talk about their family. The children they have raised and how important their grandchildren are. You can also mention how they care for their elderly parents if applicable.
9. Make sure that you adequately prepare for the speech. I recommend at least one hour of practice time.
10. Raise a toast to the happy couple. Stand and deliver.

The information that you brainstorm above will create a great sketch for a wedding anniversary speech.

One of the most difficult speeches to write is the eulogy. Writing a eulogy for your father makes an already difficult task feel impossible.

Here are my top five recommendations for father eulogies.

1. Focus on one or two characteristics of your father. Of course you remember him as loving, funny, generous, etc. However, you want to focus your eulogy on only one or two characteristics that best define your father. What was he known for in the family? What personality trait was he famous for in the community? One mistake that I often read in father eulogies is that the author wants to fully describe their father’s life and personality. You can’t sum up the life of a man in a few minutes. You have to focus on a handful of characteristics to keep the eulogy well structured. The structure of a eulogy like any speech will have a beginning, middle and end that is clear to the audience.
2. Read a sample eulogy or famous eulogies in order to get a feel for the eulogy structure
3. Don’t try to organize your thoughts in the first draft of your eulogy. Let your feelings flow naturally. At first, your eulogy will sound scattered but that is normal because of the rush of emotions. Don’t constrain your creativity or emotion when you write the first draft. You should also accept that your first draft is most likely to be incomprehensible. Don’t be discouraged. You most likely have little experience writing eulogies.
4. Focus on the most powerful memory of your father in the eulogy. Perhaps it was a vacation to Disneyworld, driving to the summer cabin or him watching your ballet practice. Describe this memory in great detail using vivid imagery.
5. The end of your father’s eulogy  should end with a positive note. If you have some humor that you want to add, the conclusion is a great time to use it. It is similar to a movie in that you want the audience to leave the theater on a high note. Of course, with a eulogy, you are not trying to entertain anybody but you don’t want to end the eulogy on a depressing note.

One of the most irritating things to any audience is the use of clichés. I constantly come across cliches particularly in wedding speeches. You Must Avoid Clichés In Your Wedding Speech!

Yes, this involves effort because clichés are often the first thing that pops into our minds when we write speeches.

Here are a few clichés that I hear over and over again:

Wedding Speeches

1. Marriage of two minds
2. Old ball and chain
3. Tie the knot
4. Describe someone as having a great sense of humor

Birthday Toast

1. Fine as aged wine
2. Like father, like son

Eulogies

1. He who laughs last, laughs best
2. Cash in your chips

Be specific when you use adjectives – instead of saying beautiful say ravishing. Secondly, give examples after you list a characteristic. Often I hear speeches where the speaker lists ten characteristics without a single example. For example, someone will talk about how determined someone is without giving any real life examples to show that the person is strong willed.

If you are in doubt about whether or not you are using a cliche – you almost certainly are. Nonetheless, just run your idea past this cliche search engine. If it shows up on a cliche site – you cannot use it in your speech.