The tone of a funny groom speech is somewhere between the speech of the best man and the speech of the father of the bride. The speech of the father most of the time is solemn while the speech of the best man is outright hilarious. The speech of the groom on the other hand is sincere and formal but would be a lot more interesting when it is entertaining with the right amount of humor.
A funny and entertaining speech will always be welcome anywhere. What makes a funny groom speech a little difficult is the expectation for formality, sincerity, and functionality, but there are no hard rules, if the groom chooses a funny speech, the following could be pitfalls to avoid.
Guests at any wedding come from a diverse group composed of different ages, persuasions, and religion. Both families of the couple, friends, acquaintances, and colleagues come from different backgrounds. The guests at the wedding may also be meeting the bride for the first time. There are also different degrees of familiarity. This factor tends to make some guests not very receptive to humor. The best topics to relate then should be those that have more universal experience so that as much as possible, no one feels left out.
Before the speeches, it is very desirable to make all the guests feel welcome and proper introductions made. Thanking all those who attended (even when this done during speeches) will be a good icebreaker.
Popular jokes and cliché should be avoided in the speech. Make sure that the jokes, one liners and anecdotes especially during the opening sentences must be in fact funny. To gauge the audiences reaction, try it our first with a friend or two. You would not want a joke that is met with stillness so practice the delivery beforehand until you could do it to perfection. You will need more than a few jokes and one liners during the speech but when you could get your audience to laugh at your first attempt, you could easily get them laughing again.
You are the man of the night and it is highly expected of you to assure your in-laws that their daughter is protected. So compliment everything that attracted you to your bride but stay off complimenting her breasts and her buns. Keep your punch line at the end of the sentence. And then, no matter how intoxicated you already are, keep off the Beauty and the Beast story. Sure your wife is the beauty, exquisite in fact, but your mother in law may not resemble your bride a bit and someone in the audience might just glance at her mother, you know?
By this time, your best man must already be done with his speech and have won some very good laughs. Tear him to shreds and be friendly about it. An audience that is already primed to laugh by the best man would not mind you character assassinating him.
In any event the word is respectable humor. A funny groom speech is not intended to outdo the amusement that the best man got away with.
