LOVE SHOCK

After getting engaged in November, Jarnell Swecker and her then-fiance Kevin knew they wanted something different for their wedding.

“We’ve been to a lot of weddings together, and a lot of weddings were looking the same. They were so cookie-cutter, and you knew what to expect, and they all became a blur,” said Swecker, 37.

On top of that, Swecker was feeling the pressure. Her friends and family members were already asking who would be the flower girl and harping on wedding do’s and don’ts.

The Upper Marlboro couple wanted to get married their way. “We threw tradition out of the window,” Swecker said.

On April Fools’ Day, around 150 guests gathered at Ellicott City’s Main Street Ballroom for an event billed as the couple’s engagement party. After greeting guests, the bride slipped away with her father. That’s when her cousin stepped up to the microphone and made a confession: The engagement party was actually a wedding. Swecker, in her wedding dress, and her dad, in a tuxedo, burst through a side door, dancing to the Calvin Harris/Rihanna song “This is What You Came For.”

Jaws dropped, Swecker said. “People are still talking about it.”

Surprise weddings, first popular with celebrities looking to avoid paparazzi, have emerged as a trend among everyday couples who want to shock guests and shirk tradition. These unconventional events allow engaged couples to plan more intimate weddings on their own terms, sometimes on a cheaper budget and often in combination with an engagement party, said Lillie'ann Smith, a local wedding planner and owner of Lillie'ann Events & Designs.

“It’s like killing two birds with one stone,” said Smith, who has planned two surprise weddings