Egyptian groom springs IS kidnap prank on bride

The threat that Islamic State poses to Egypt has become ever more apparent in recent weeks.

The group's murder of 21 Egyptian Christians in Libya last month, as well as the killing of at least 30 soldiers by an IS-affiliate in Egypt's north Sinai desert, brought 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 and entertain his bride and their guests, Ahmed Shehata, a 25-year-old medical graduate, arranged for his relatives to dress up as IS militants and pretend to kidnap his new wife at their wedding this week.

To the soundtrack of the notorious IS 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 burnt alive last month.

"I knew there would be a surprise," she later told reporters, after a video of the stunt 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 as her brother, and it turned out the groom had been in on the prank all along.