A toast from your heart, written by someone else

I WILL ... I woo ... I do! Whew. Hard part over. Well sure, for the bride and groom, but what about the best man? He's got a toast to give and may not understand the gravity of what lies ahead. Nearly 1 in 5 brides surveyed last year by Modern Bride was mortified by the best man's toast.

Ty Chivers is a best man who does understand. He hired a ghostwriter for the toast he gave at his brother's Atlanta wedding this month.

"I'm not shy when it comes to words, but I wanted something that would be impressive," he says of his duty to warm the hearts of 150 wedding guests. "I wanted a writer to help me put it together."

Toast-tailoring is the newest entry in a wedding-service industry designed to take the pain and suffering out of the blessed event.

Mr. Chivers, for example, found ThePerfectToast.com, a service offering custom wedding toasts. There are perhaps a few dozen companies offering toast-writing help. The price for eloquence? Thirty dollars for a pre-written, one-toast-fits-all squib to $75-an-hour for custom work. At Rhyme Lines in Fridley, Minn. – where all toasts rhyme – it's $20 per stanza.

Chivers, a Florida real estate agent, completed an 18-question form at ThePerfectToast.com's website, paid with a credit card, and answered some follow-up questions from his writer, company founder David Pitlik. A few days later Chivers got a 785-words that began: "What greater tribute to our friendship could there be than standing by my brother on this, the most important day of his life?"

To read the words Mr. Pitlik wrote for Chivers – including a story about the time his brother, at the urging of their father, punched the neighborhood bully in the nose – almost suggests the ghostwriter has done something illicit, like rummaging through Chivers' drawers, reading private letters and personal scrapbooks. But, says Chivers, it didn't feel strange speaking sincere, sentimental words about his family that were written by a total stranger.

"Nah," he explains, "this toast includes all the feelings I have for my brother that I didn't know how to put down on paper. I changed some words that I don't normally use ... but otherwise, it's great." The toast went off without a hitch – but he didn't tell anyone he didn't actually write it.

Weddings are an occasion that demand a moment of Hollywood glamour, and the toast provides that, says Marshall Fishwick, a professor of humanities at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. "Everyone involved has spent a great deal of time, money, and effort to bring all these people together. Here is the moment where the best man is asked to say something poignant and important ... that will be remembered for more than 20 minutes."

Pitlik agrees. "For most people, this toast is perhaps the most important speech they'll ever make at a public event," he says. "This isn't the M.C. introducing the new couple, it's ... more intimate and emotional."

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