Your Wedding Speech: Should You iPhone It In?

I was excited to receive a video recently from a client giving the best man speech we created together at his friend’s wedding in Boston.

He’s a dentist without much public speaking experience so he was on edge when we began working together. But the video showed him energized and getting laughs, cheers and applause throughout. A home run by any standard.

But as happy as I was for him, I felt a little uncomfortable watching his speech. Not because of his performance, which was great, but because he was delivering the speech from the glow of an iPhone cradled in his left hand.

It all just seemed a little, well… cold.

He’d look down at his phone, read then use his other hand, which also held a microphone, to scroll down the screen.

This is not very different from how speakers use traditional note cards, of course, but it felt impersonal to me.

Maybe it’s because smartphones, while ubiquitous and transformative, can be irritating to be around at times. This is never truer than when you’re in the presence of someone paying more attention to their phone than you.

We’ve all experienced someone who says they just need to “text this person/check Instagram/send this email real quick” in the middle of your conversation. They say this as they look away, bury their head in their phone and put up their “don’t talk to me” force field.  

Now there’s even a term for being ignored by someone more interested in their phone. James Roberts, a professor of marketing at Baylor University, calls it “phubbing,” the combination of “phone” and “snubbing.”

“We’ve all been phubbed repeatedly and we don’t like it,” he explains in a blog post on Huffington Post.

It’s happened to me so often I think the neuropathways in my brain have been rewired. Just seeing a speech delivered from an iPhone even triggers a phubbing response in some people.

I’ve seen an increase in the number of brides and grooms that ban speeches at their wedding delivered from phones. And I’ve heard mixed reviews from wedding audiences. Some don’t mind speakers delivering from their phone, while others don’t like it and have described it to me as “lazy.”  

In the end, use what works best for you.

And be sure your phone is charged at the wedding. Pity the speaker whose battery goes dead as the master of ceremonies announces, “And now here’s our maid of honor with her thoughts on this special day…”