"Bride Swap: A Comedy of Possession at the Altar"

Today was supposed to be the greatest day of my life—my wedding day. Standing at the altar, anxiously waiting for my bride, I still couldn't believe my best friend, Jake, couldn't make it. Jake had moved halfway across the world a couple of years ago, and despite his best efforts, flights and schedules just didn't align.

At least, that's what I thought.

The ceremony began without a hitch. My soon-to-be-wife, Karen, looked radiant as she walked down the aisle. Everything was perfect until it wasn't.

"Do you, Karen, take this man—"

"I sure do, bro!"

The collective murmur that followed echoed like a wave through the crowd. I blinked. The voice was unmistakably Jake's. His tone, his inflection, everything. But the face? That was undeniably Karen.

"Jake?" I whispered through clenched teeth.

"Bro, surprise!" My bride—slash Jake-in-Karen's-body—winked at me.

"How did you—"

"Possession spell, my dude. Found it on some crazy site. Worked like a charm! Who knew hocus-pocus could be real?"

The priest cleared his throat, confused and cautiously eyeing Karen-Jake. "Should I continue?"

"Yeah, yeah. Sorry, padre. Carry on," Jake waved him off dismissively, tapping Karen's foot impatiently.

The most serious part of my life had transformed into a scene from a screwball comedy. I had to nudge Jake repeatedly to stop looking down at Karen's... assets and giggling. Not only was this concerningly inappropriate, but the bridesmaids were whispering, and my grandmother had fainted. Twice.

By the time we got to the reception, whispers about how Karen had suddenly become a karaoke star singing explicit rap songs in an impressive yet unexpected baritone were circulating like wildfire.

"Yo, remember that time in high school where you locked me in the girl's bathroom?" Jake raised his hand, now attached to Karen's body, in an attempt to high-five me.

"Jake, focus," I replied, trying not to break into chaotic laughter. "We need to reverse this."

Jake waggled Karen’s hips dramatically, causing the nearby bridal party to burst into applause. "Bro, she's got good moves!”

"Aren't you supposed to be concerned?"

"Lighten up, man! This is hilarious!"

During our first dance as a married couple, Jake made things even worse. We were swaying to some romantic tune when he smirked, whispering in my ear. "You know, you have to keep your hand on my—Karen's butt. At all times. It’s tradition."

"Stop it, Jake," I hissed.

He then regaled me with embarrassing high school memories. "Remember the talent show? You rapped Vanilla Ice!"

I groaned, feeling my face flush. "I’ve tried to forget, thanks."

He couldn’t let it go. "Ice Ice Baby, you were worse than the original!"

As the night wore on, it was impossible not to laugh. Guests kept whispering, "Since when did Karen know 'Gangsta's Paradise'?" or "Was she always this good at the Macarena?"

By the end of the wild evening, Jake finally addressed the elephant in the room. "So, uh, about reversing this spell?"

"Yes, how? Before the honeymoon!"

"Don't worry, googling ‘possession spell reverse' can't be harder than turning Karen into me. Easy peasy."

I stared at my undoubtedly possessed bride. "You better hope you're right."

As entertaining as this wedding turned out to be, complete with unforeseen karaoke skills, impromptu dance-offs, and endless nostalgia, I couldn’t help but want my actual wife back before the honeymoon. Here’s to hoping Google had an answer for our unusual predicament.

This story was generated by user zach3 with assistance by one of OpenAI’s large-scale language-generation model; prompts used to help generate the story are shown below.

Images were generated with OpenAI's AI system, DALL·E 2, or uploaded by the user.

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