The threat that Islamic State (Isis) poses to Egypt has become ever more apparent in recent weeks. Isis’s murder of 21 Egyptian Christians in Libya last month, as well as the killing of at least 30 soldiers by an Isis-affiliate in Egypt’s north Sinai desert, made the group’s once-distant terror seem much closer to home.

But while fear is a common response for many, one Egyptian wanted to laugh in the face of adversity. And he decided his own wedding was the best forum in which to do so.

In an attempt to surprise his bride and their guests, Ahmed Shehata, a 25-year-old medical graduate, arranged for relatives to dress up as Isis militants and pretend to kidnap his new wife at their wedding this week.

To the soundtrack of the notorious Isis anthem, masked men entered the wedding of Shaimaa Deif, a 23-year-old medical graduate, and strong-armed her and Shehata into a cage reminiscent of the one in which a Jordanian pilot was burned alive last month.

“I knew there would be a surprise,” she later told the Guardian, after a video of the bizarre incident went viral on Egyptian social media. “But I never imagined that the surprise would be like that.”

Deif’s momentary panic soon subsided into amusement after the music merged into a dance-track, one of the masked men revealed himself to be her brother, and it turned out the groom had been in on the stunt all along.

Deif admitted that she had not expected the dark cloth she gave her fiance in the run-up to the wedding to be used to make fake Isis masks: “I thought it was for something romantic,” she said.

But she gamely argued that the prank sent a strong message to Isis. “The cage you’re scaring us with, we are dancing inside it,” said Deif, addressing the transnational jihadi movement.

Some Egyptians have reacted angrily to the prank, arguing that it was in poor taste given the recent massacre of 21 Egyptians in Libya, and murder of several more on Egyptian soil by unknown perpetrators this week. But Deif argued: “We aren’t making light of other people’s blood. We’re showing that we’re not scared, and that Egyptians meet any crisis with laughter and comedy.”

Deif’s father, Mohamed, a nose and mouth doctor, was momentarily less amused – rushing across the wedding hall to save his daughter in the belief that Isis members really were about to kidnap her. But the groom said that once his new father-in-law realised it was all a joke, he relaxed. “He was happy because it was such a new idea,” said Shehata.

Weddings in Egypt are sometimes formulaic, Shehata added. So when planning his own a fortnight ago, he wanted to do something that would surprise his bride, and took inspiration from the recent Isis murders in Libya. He did wonder whether the prank came too soon to be tasteful. But he concluded that it was best to strike while the iron was hot. “I couldn’t do it after everyone had forgotten it. We did consider people who knew the victims in it. But we had to deliver this message now.”

Egyptian satirists overlay the IS anthem over footage of a gyrating news presenter Egyptian satirists overlay the IS anthem over footage of a gyrating news presenter

By dressing up as pretend Isis fighters, his friends had given Isis a loud and clear message: “Whatever happens because of this [massacre], you are not going to scare us,” Shehata said. “We will scare you, because our enjoyment, our happiness and our weddings will continue whatever you do.”

Shehata’s antics are among several attempts by Egyptians to use humour to undermine Isis’s image. Others have uploaded Isis’s anthem to YouTube, and overlaid it with incongruous footage, including that of old movie footage, belly-dancers, singing schoolchildren, and a gyrating news presenter.

Additional reporting: Manu Abdo