
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, May 27, 1994                   TAG: 9405270086
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: WENDI GIBSON RICHERT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TIPS FOR TOASTING

June is nearly upon us. And with its arrival, more folks will be walking about red-faced, tongue-tied, with sweaty palms and on tenterhooks.

Most likely, their jitters won't be from the heat; these folks are preparing for a June wedding. And they're neither the bride nor the groom. Best men and maids of honor will feel the heat, too, as they prepare to toast the impending summer nuptials.

Enter Korbel champagne, and its Wedding Toast hotline - 1-800-7-KORBEL, beginning Wednesday and running through June.

Because June is the hottest wedding month of the year, Korbel set up the automated hotline to offer tips on how to deliver an eloquent toast.

The hotline will offer a menu of toasting pointers, general guidelines and rules of etiquette to how to write your own humorous or sentimental toast to how to select and serve champagne on the big day. Among the hints:

Keep your toast brief, no longer than three minutes.

Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse your material.

Never insult the bride in a toast.

Borrow from Groucho Marx: ``Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution?''

Toast in this order: Tradition calls for the best man to toast the bride and groom; the groom to toast his new wife and her family; the fathers to toast the newlyweds; and the bride and groom to toast each other. However, a free-for-all may ensue.

By then, of course, everyone's toasted.

by CNB