A Spanish man has come up with an ingenious way of making money – crashing weddings and pretending to be the bride’s or the groom’s lover and asking them to run away together.

Ernesto, the middle-aged man behind the bizarre service, has become the talk of the town in Spain after appearing in a now-viral video posted on Antena 3’s Y Ahora Son Soles TikTok. He claimed that, while most people see their wedding day as the happiest of their lives, for some it’s a nightmare waiting to happen. And those few happen to be his clientele. For a base fee of 500 euros ($550), Ernesto promises to crash the client’s wedding and pose as the love of their life, begging them to run away together just to get the event canceled.

Photo: Wu Jianxiong/Unsplash

“If you have doubts, you don’t want to get married or you don’t know how to say no, don’t worry anymore, I will cancel the wedding for you,” Ernesto says in the video. “You only have to tell me the time, place, and date and I will appear at the ceremony. I will say that I am the love of your life and we will run away together hand in hand.”

Apparently, the service started out as a joke, but after being inundated with requests from interested parties, Ernesto realized he was on to something. He currently charges 500 euros for crashing an event, which doesn’t include travel expenses, but he gets paid extra in case of unexpected incidents. For example, if he gets slapped, punched, or kicked, he gets paid more. Every slap earns him 50 euros ($55).

“Each slap is worth 50 euros. I try to run, but I am aware that every time I get hit, I get paid more. So, if I can go slower, I go slower. That’s how I earn my money,” Ernesto explained.

Believe it or not, Ernesto’s wedding crashing service has proven pretty popular, and he now allegedly has his schedule fully booked until November 2nd.