The idea of the wedding toasts is really just to encourage everyone to raise their glasses and offer the newlyweds best wishes for their new life together.

However, many people seem to use wedding toasts as an excuse to give a wedding speech and dont keep to the unwritten rule of delivering short and sweet wedding toasts.

The tradition is to have the best man perform the official wedding toasts but as the evening progresses these can be hijacked by almost anyone who has consumed enough Dutch courage to stand up and take centre stage!

As with the wedding speeches the key to wedding toasts is to have them at the beginning of the meal, rather than the end.

This may not be everyones idea of the appropriate timing for the wedding toasts but I think it is perfect and less likely to end up in a stream of glass clinking and raising that inevitably happens later in the evening.

To be perfectly honest, I am extremely shy and the thought of having endless wedding toasts is extremely embarrassing. Id rather have one simple glass raising session and be given best wishes by everyone in one go rather than endure numerous wedding toasts but thats just me!