Wedding Guests Speechless as Pole Dancers Perform Near Ceremony (Exclusive)

A bride and groom had a few unexpected dancers at their wedding.

Kaylee and Garreth Lautz tied the knot on Saturday, Aug. 9 at The Dana on Mission Bay in San Diego. Their coastal California wedding, however, looked more like a strip club as a group of strangers set up a pole by the beach to record dancers exotically performing for “a couple of hours” before the outdoor ceremony began.

“Wedding about to start. The bride is in for a surprise-nado!” onlooker Amy Itzel captioned a TikTok video of the scene, adding in a comment, “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something taboo 💈🤸.”

Itzel had arrived at the hotel to meet her cousins “for a weekend of family fun with the kids.” She tells PEOPLE that when they stepped out onto the balcony to see the sparkling ocean view, “it was impossible to miss” the wedding ceremony set up on the grassy lawn — and the pole dancers directly next to it.

“As our families admired the scene, jaws dropped,” Itzel remembers. “Just beyond the altar, in the middle of the beach area, twirled a barely clothed pole dancer — displaying both strength and artistry — spread-eagle in the air, six-inch clear heels aimed skyward. It was a surreal mash-up: a wholesome seaside wedding sharing the stage with an unapologetic exotic performance.”

Itzel and her relatives weren’t the only ones watching. She notes that the groomsmen on a nearby balcony also “had front-row seats to the spectacle.”

“We laughed until we cried, offering the pole ballerinas a few cheers, while quietly wondering if they planned to vacate before the vows began,” Itzel says.

As time passed, Itzel’s “secondhand anxiety grew.” However, the dancers eventually rolled their pole platform out of sight. 

Kaylee, who reposted Itzel’s video, explains to PEOPLE that the resort coordinator and her day-of wedding coordinator had politely asked the dancers to move right before the ceremony began around 4 p.m. as the 150 wedding guests trickled in. 

“People who arrived earlier saw the pole dancers and were cracking up but also a little bit worried,” the bride says.

Luckily, the group agreed to leave without any pushback.

At the time, Kaylee was unaware of the pole dancers. No one told her because they didn’t want her to “stress out.”

“I found out after the ceremony and I thought it was hilarious and also very grateful that they moved for the ceremony because they were right in the center of where pictures would be taken,” Kaylee says. “My partner had a front row view to the pole dancers while the ceremony was being set up and while he thought it was funny, he was waiting on the coordinator to ask them if they would be able to move and had a plan for groomsmen to talk to them if it got closer to the ceremony start time.”

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TikTok users found the unexpected wedding scenario to be hilarious.

“The ex came up with a diabolical plan! 😭,” one TikToker joked, with someone else teasing, “Combining the bachelor party and wedding in this economy is genius.”

Another person wrote: “That’s what happens when you have a wedding outside in public. There’s public!”