Two movie stunt professionals planned an elaborate surprise performance for their wedding. They had no idea the video went viral on TikTok.

• Ambyr and Gabriel Jessop are stunt professionals who met on a film set in 2019.
• The pair got married in early May, performing a "burn" stunt where they set their clothes on fire.

When Ambyr and Gabriel Jessop got married on May 7, they knew they wanted to do something special to show their guests "why we chose the career we did and why we love it." Being movie stunt professionals, it was always going to be flamboyant.

After much consideration, they landed on the perfect stunt — lighting the backs of their clothes aflame so that it looked like they were on fire.

After the wedding, the couple went on their honeymoon, and said they had "no clue" their DJ had posted a video on TikTok showing the stunt. But after a few hours, Gabriel said his family members and friends began sending messages about the video, and they realized they were going viral.

It now has 16 million views and 3 million likes, and the couple is "just happy that overall the reaction is positive," they said.

The Jessops told Insider they had no intention of sharing the clip with other people on social media. They said their wedding had "so much positivity" and they "weren't trying to showboat or make something for the internet."

That said, they added, "It was so nice to see that people could see our chemistry and why we would put ourselves through something like that instead of just having a normal wedding like most people."

The stunt required a lot of preparation to undertake safely

To perform the stunt, the back of Ambyr's wedding dress and her bouquet were set alight, as was the back of Gabriel's suit.

Many commenters on TikTok compared it to a scene in "The Hunger Games" movie where characters Katniss and Peeta are set on fire. Several comments expressed concern for Ambyr's hair, which appeared to be partially alight in the TikTok, but she told Insider she was in fact wearing a hood and a wig to protect her real hair.

The couple also said they used fire retardants on their clothes and skin and asked members of the Wasatch County Fire Department in Utah to wait nearby in case anything went wrong.

The fire department did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Appearing to be on fire felt like the perfect way to honor their connection

Ambyr and Gabriel, who met in 2019 while working on the crew on a movie set near Salt Lake City, Utah, told Insider that they decided to use fire in their performance because it felt like an appropriate way to celebrate their connection.

"There's all the cliché comments about love, right? Like it's our 'burning love' for each other and 'the two flames becoming one.' And we were talking with Frank, our stunt coordinator, and he said, 'Oh, there's so many ways you can connect that to your love and your story,' so we thought, let's do it," Gabriel told Insider.

Ambyr added, "In so many stunts you're getting beat up or you're falling or fighting someone. And if we were to do something like that at a wedding, I felt that it didn't quite speak to our connection and love."

She said that while performing the stunt, the couple had to communicate with each other to make sure the other person was OK, "so it represented and fuelled a connection between us in so many ways."

After Powell's video of the couple went viral, Ambyr and Gabriel both posted clips from the stunt on their own TikTok accounts. They said the success of Powell's video has inspired them to "go bigger" and post other stunts on social media in the future.

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