Success story: Best man speech went amazingly well.

Success story: Best man speech went amazingly well. 2 months ago my brother asked me to be the best man at his wedding. At first I was shocked as he and I are not really very close. I'm his oldest brother, and his fiancée was worried what his friends might say in a speech if any of them were best man, so I guess I was a good choice. I was very nervous about how it would go and about a month before the wedding had made a decision that I would not be giving a speech. I thought I'd just prepare a speech and my youngest brother could read it. But then a few weeks before the wedding, after speaking to a friend of mine, I decided I'd do it. It wouldn't matter if I stuttered. My friend said "just embrace it". I took on the mindset of, this is my family's wedding, I am proud of who I am and proud of my brother for getting married, this is happening. This is happening. Part of my anxiety about giving the speech was in saying what I wanted to say. Not just the stuttering, but actually publicly saying what I wanted to say. There's been strife in my family, especially with my sister, and I wanted to acknowledge her and tell her I love her and everyone else as well. So yeah I got choked up a few times during the speech, but didn't really cry. I ad-libbed a few things. It was nice to have a big screen and projector behind me showing a bunch of my brother's childhood photos. When I approached the podium I just commented that I remembered pretty much every single photo and what was going on at the time etc. It felt great to not have stuttered at all while giving this speech, but I realize, if I had stuttered, that would've been just fine too. It felt great to conquer my fear of public speaking. Whether or not I stuttered is really beside the point. When I speak in front of a group I'm usually quite uncomfortable, and I was definitely nervous right before going up to the podium, but once I started speaking I felt a wave of relaxation come over me. I've described my stutter before as sort of being like, when it really counts, I'll usually be fluent because my mind goes into overdrive to make sure I don't stutter. But then when I'm with family and friends and my brain is perhaps more relaxed, I'm more likely to stutter. So maybe that played into me being fluent while delivering the speech. But again, if I'd stuttered, that would've been fine too. I'm not ashamed of it anymore.