Strangers Pay Up to $150 a Seat to Attend Weddings They Weren't Invited To

Couples are selling empty wedding seats to strangers for as much as $150 each on Not a Wedding Crasher, a platform that has signed up nearly 20,000 people since launching in mid-March. The site, built by San Diego couple Jeff and Karina Besen, has placed close to 1,000 guests at about 60 weddings, Jeff told Fortune, and processed "tens of thousands of dollars" in gross seat payments.

The idea solves an expensive arithmetic problem for couples. Jeff said an estimated 10% to 20% of invited guests decline or drop out, while many venues enforce minimum headcounts regardless of who shows up.

"You may have to pay for 100 seats, and you can only get 75 people," Jeff said. The empty chairs carry real costs: The Knot's 2026 Real Weddings Study put the average cost per wedding guest at $292, with an average guest count of 117.

How does the marketplace work?

Couples sign up as hosts, list their open seats — Jeff calls it "unused capacity" — and set the price. Prices on the site have ranged from $25 to $150 a seat, averaging about $50. Current listings include a $25 seat outside Nashville and 19 open seats at $70 each for a Las Vegas wedding next month. Listings have ranged from a single seat to 60.

Guests join for free. They build a profile with a photo, a short bio and social media links, then verify identity by scanning a government ID and their face through Stripe. A guest requests a seat with a short note, and the couple approves or declines from a dashboard. Only after approval does the guest learn the venue's name and address.

The company takes a 20% platform fee on each seat's price, plus a service fee Jeff described as "relatively nominal," charged to guests per transaction. It keeps 20% of the gross seat payments processed so far.

"This is also a largely software business, so we do have pretty high margins," Jeff said. He added the couple is exploring other ways to expand revenue.

How fast has it grown?

Growth has come almost entirely from social media. The Besens produce short videos for each new listing and target them to the cities where the weddings take place.

The site's first wedding came in May, in Los Angeles, and the founders attended themselves. "We are based in San Diego, so fortunately that was relatively close," Jeff said. "As any good business owner, you should be eating your own dog food, if you will. So we had to go and try it out."

In May, the platform had sold about a dozen seats and counted 300 guests. Five months later, it has placed nearly 1,000 guests across roughly 60 weddings and counts almost 20,000 sign-ups nationwide. Guests have flown across the country to attend — alone, in pairs and in groups. Some who met as fellow crashers now book weddings together.

The founders vet every listing personally. They review each one and contact the couple before it goes live to weed out fake accounts. Gifts aren't required, though some guests bring them anyway.

Hosts have reasons beyond filling paid-for seats. Jeff described a recent Atlanta wedding where the couple's guest list skewed toward older relatives and they wanted people who would dance. Many hosts ask for exactly that.

"You're choosing your guests," Jeff said.

Why did the founders build it?

The business began with a date night. The Besens, married 19 years, have a standing weekly date night and had run out of things to do.

"One day, Jeff literally looked at me and said, 'Hey, wouldn't it be fun if we could get dressed up and go to a wedding?'" Karina told Fortune. Jeff searched for a service connecting couples with seat-fillers and found nothing like it. So they built it.

The idea has a personal edge. Karina was 21 and Jeff was 23 when they married, and they had children by the time she was 23. "You know how some people get to go to weddings every weekend for a year? We didn't really get to do that," Karina said. "We had too much responsibility at home."

Their own wedding hit the same venue minimums their site now works around. Their preferred venue required at least 100 guests on a Saturday; with only 50 or 60 people, they married on a Sunday instead.

Before launch, the couple tested the concept on strangers, including comedians outside comedy clubs and vendors at a wedding expo. "Some people said it's crazy, but most people said it's a really good idea," Jeff said.

The couple, who describe themselves as private, have had to adjust. "We are fairly private people, and this has totally flipped us upside down," Jeff said. Karina said they've learned to put themselves out publicly, since they now film videos for every listing.

The platform has also produced outcomes the founders didn't anticipate. Karina said one guest wrote in her profile that she had always wanted to be an adult flower girl. "That bride that she applied to the wedding actually asked her to be her adult flower girl in the wedding," Karina said.

With high software margins, a 20% take rate and a user base that grew from 300 to nearly 20,000 in five months, the Besens are now looking at additional revenue streams beyond seat fees.