Finding a way to make your wedding unique and original can be a bit tricky, particularly when sites like Pinterest (we still love you Pinterest) are making D.I.Y. and hyper-personalization the norm. But triple threat couple Tammy Caplan and Joe Gold — both of whom are actors, writers, and filmmakers — found a way to make their wedding both personal and a total surprise. The couple was recently married by puppets!

Yes, puppets. And the plural is correct. They had six puppets in all, including a ship’s captain, a rabbi, and a ring bear. The team of puppets performed the ceremony, which is legal because one of the puppeteers got ordained ahead of time, and even lead a sing-a-long, because how could you not include singing when a puppet is performing your wedding?

The couple came up with the idea while planning their April wedding, and decided it was a great homage to their mutual love of The Muppets and Sesame Street. They kept the idea a secret while they worked with the L.A. Puppet School to create costumes and find puppeteers, only revealing their officiants to their parents at the last-minute.

“We kept it a secret from everyone, even the wedding party,” Tammy shared with A Practical Wedding. “They kept asking, ‘Who’s performing the ceremony?’ And we kept saying, ‘It’s a surprise.’ Since we work in the film industry, I think they assumed it would be some sort of a celebrity. Our parents found out at the wedding rehearsal.”

Tammy and Joe worked together on writing a script for the ceremony, which wasn’t their first time working on a project together but was their first puppet script. And as you can see in the video on the next page, they definitely had some fun with it!

The guests, of course, loved the unique ceremony. Tammy and Joe even included a way for their guests to get involved with the puppet theme: “We also had puppet making during the reception so that everyone could go home with a puppet. And for the last dance, everyone brought their puppets onto the dance floor!”