Flashmob, Guerilla Weddings - Teh Rulz

Lots of people have been contacting us about this meme lately (NBC, WSJ, EMPIRE NEWS) . Some people even called this a "gorilla wedding". Hah!  We decided to write some RULES!

1) If you've invited over 20 people, ALWAYS try to get a permit for a location, or talk to Security IN ADVANCE. Check out the location on the same day of the week ahead of time, and see who you will be bothering. NEVER try to do a large wedding without a permit, or the poor security guards will have to act. It's their JOB, and your wedding will be ruined.  DO NOT SWARM museums, stores, monuments.
2) DO NOT BLOCK public thoroughfares - streets or pedestrian walkways, like the Brooklyn Bridge, The Highline, The Piers. Take your wed PIX on those places, but don't tell 50 people to crash it and be obnoxious. 
3) For a crowd, consider holding a "surprise" wedding, not a guerilla / flashmob. Invite people to a bar, club, your house, your condo party room, to a restaurant, for drinks, an engagement party, whatever. Then invite us in, we'll ask people to gather round the bar, and we'll have a lovely fun surprise wedding. BUT ALWAYS TELL YOUR MOTHER. You don't want her to faint, or go to the washroom crying because you didn't care enough to tell her.
4) If you're outside, it's NATURE. Don't bring chairs, high heels, gazebos, balloons, amps. It's not a theme park, it's real. Stand in a circle, be respectful, take nothing, leave nothing. remember Smokey the Bear.
5) Rent a double-decker bus, and you can take the wedding party with you, get married on the top, get off for pix. Don't swarm.
6) Just go have a picnic on Coney Island. Then, pop out the flowers, play some live guitar, whip out your wildflower bouquet, change into your polkadot party dress and get married. Then play badminton.
7) Black tie? Rent a private dining room in a restaurant. Tell them it's a 'private party' (don't say "wedding"), ask for champagne, ask everyone to stand, ask the Officiant to come to the front table and 'ta da' - "May I have your attention?  Would you all now rise for the -- wedding of Miles and Morris!"
8) Rent a tourboat. Or rent some rowboats in the park and row to the middle and watch from the boat.
9) Or rent roller skates or ice skates and do a deal with the rink people between the zambonis to have a little 10 minute centre ice event. Then, you'd better skate!
10) For a larger, surprise wedding, we do a lot of weddings at existing public events - holidays, birthday parties, festivals where people have already assembled to celebrate. Just ADD a wedding. We have married couples on public holidays before the fireworks, at halloween parties, at dawn on a holiday morning when the traffic is zero and the mist is rising on the Brooklyn bridge. Those are times when people are off work, and ready to GO somewhere for an event anyway. So make use of existing gatherings -- Getting the drift? Don't be a flashmob queen. You aren't IMPROV EVERYWHERE. This isn't a Youtube video. Think of others. Don't abuse public spaces. Don't make the poor security schmuck have to intervene. Don't impose your party on other people. If it's a crowd, then either RENT a space, outside or inside (be creative!) and you don't have to tell people the spot in advance, if you want to be mysterious.  And you can still be casual  and use card-tables and beach blankets and a pickup band and  sparklers and jam jars of flowers - but don't TAKE OVER public spaces with your mob.

And for a guerilla ELOPEMENT, be discreet and fun. Speak quietly. Stand in a circle, away from the rush.  Concentrate on each other and what you are saying. Choose your words and vows carefully. It's your wedding - not a punk'd prank. Enjoy, and be happy.