Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Available On Air Stations
Watch Live

It's A Nice Day For A Flash Wedding

Maryclaire Abowd and Mostafa Farid say their vows at the American Art Museum.
Maggie Winters PopWed Co.
Maryclaire Abowd and Mostafa Farid say their vows at the American Art Museum.

TC & Bev, PopWed Co.'s first couple, wed at the colorful Blind Whino: SW Arts Club, a former Baptist church-turned-nonprofit art gallery.
Maggie Winters PopWed Co.
TC & Bev, PopWed Co.'s first couple, wed at the colorful Blind Whino: SW Arts Club, a former Baptist church-turned-nonprofit art gallery.

Kate Dehaas and Andrew Radcliffe, along with their daughter Hannah, traveled from Canada to get married in D.C.
Maggie Winters PopWed Co.
Kate Dehaas and Andrew Radcliffe, along with their daughter Hannah, traveled from Canada to get married in D.C.

Advertisement
Nicole (left) and Rose Gerstle renew their vows during the 2014 Capital Pride Parade.
Maggie Winters PopWed Co.
Nicole (left) and Rose Gerstle renew their vows during the 2014 Capital Pride Parade.

Michelle Sharp (left) and Megan Huff have their ceremony along a unique bridge in Yards Park near the Navy Yard.
Maggie Winters PopWed Co.
Michelle Sharp (left) and Megan Huff have their ceremony along a unique bridge in Yards Park near the Navy Yard.

Jennifer Miller and Michael Bennett were married at the Smithsonian Natural History museum in Washington, D.C., using PopWed Co.
Maggie Winters PopWed Co.
Jennifer Miller and Michael Bennett were married at the Smithsonian Natural History museum in Washington, D.C., using PopWed Co.

Jennifer Miller and Michael Bennett were married at the Smithsonian Natural History museum in Washington, D.C., using PopWed Co.
Maggie Winters PopWed Co.
Jennifer Miller and Michael Bennett were married at the Smithsonian Natural History museum in Washington, D.C., using PopWed Co.

You've heard of pop-up restaurants, flash mobs and other hipster happenings. Now comes a pair of entrepreneurs in Washington, D.C., offering pop-up weddings for those who want to elope, but do it with flair.

Locations are never booked ahead of time, planning is minimal and fingers are crossed that you and your partner don't get asked to leave before you are pronounced husband and wife, or wife and wife.

Advertisement

PopWed Co., which started last January, procures the wedding license, chooses a creative location, takes the photographs and performs the ceremony.

The unusual venues are what make it fun, PopWed's Maggie Winters tells NPR's Linda Wertheimer. Some couples may not want to throw a big party. "They still want to commemorate the day in a really special way, but dial it back," says Winters, so it's just the two of them focusing on the moment instead of stressing out about a party.

Winters describes herself as the "tiny, technicolor half of PopWed" — a reference to her fuchsia, asymmetrical haircut. She started the company with her boyfriend, Steven Gaudaen, a management student at George Mason University.

Gaudaen is a secular humanist wedding officiant who performs the ceremonies. Winters, a professional photographer, takes the photos.

"We generally chat with [couples] about what they like to do, and how they met, to see where we should marry them," Winters explains. As Washington natives, Winters says they know all the secret, trendy and colorful locations around the city.

They've held ceremonies at a church converted into an art gallery painted with the colors of the rainbow, and inside the pearly marble atrium of the American Art Museum. They also married a couple in one of the Smithsonian museums — the one with the Hall of Bones and an 8-ton African elephant.

"When I was really small, my parents would take me to the Natural History Museum, and I just remember feeling this sense of awe when I looked at that giant elephant," Winters says. "I really wanted to find the right couple to marry [there], and when our bride told us she had just gotten back from a safari in Africa ... it was perfect."

But sometimes half the adventure is when things don't go as planned. 

"They did kick us out two-thirds of the way through," Winters concedes, "so as we were walking out, Steven pronounced them legally married so we could put the Natural History Museum on their wedding certificate."

PopWed Co. isn't "trying to be a budget wedding option" but rather, "an awesome wedding option that happens to be less expensive," Winters says.

Continuing their passion for spontaneity but with plenty of whimsy, high school sweethearts Winters and Gaudaen are planning their own pop-up wedding in the fall.

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/