How a save-the-date video for two BU alums went viral

Ashley Grossman and Ben Zises with the BU dance team.Liv Jaho

Awkward, circa 2017: When you send out a “save-the-date” wedding video that’s so charming it starts to go viral, and then you have to dodge a friend at Equinox who didn’t make the “A” invite list — and likely knows it.

Before we get to the story of engaged couple Ashley Grossman, 28, and Ben Zises, 32, let’s back up a bit and explain that “save-the-date” wedding videos are a thing, which is to say that as with everything else in this hyped-up world, the production surrounding weddings has reached what might be considered ridiculous levels.

The challenge facing today’s couples is that what was once trend-forward — engagement videos, say, or wedding hashtags — has become dated.

Thank goodness someone thought of “save-the-date” videos, even if their expiration date is no doubt already on the horizon. When Grossman, a self-described former “party girl” who is now a kindergarten teacher, and Zises, the chief operating officer in a real estate investment firm, decided to make one, they naturally just Googled “save-the-date wedding videos.”

The couple didn’t see anything that inspiring — the genre is not yet MTV Music Awards ready. But since they’re “obsessed” with Justin Timberlake, the situation was pretty much a no-brainer.

Cue J.T.’s 2016 hit, “Can’t Stop the Feeling.”

Ashley and Ben live in New York City but met at Boston University, and the joyful video — shot around campus and the city — is such a love letter to the school and Boston it could serve as a recruiting tool.

Look! There they are kissing and dancing and mugging across from Fenway Park and under the Citgo sign and in front of J.P. Licks, and cutting moves with the BU Dance Team, and fooling around with Rhett the Boston Terrier, the BU mascot.

Sample lyrics: “Cause we got that sunshine in our pockets when we shop Newbury Street/Yankee/Sox at Fenway Park, feel the heat, oooohhhh!/Take a walk through Quincy Market/Or stroll along the Charles/You will like the way we rock it so don’t stop.”

The video cost about $1,000 to make, but it is so professionally done that the credits include an editor, director of photography, an audio recording and sound mixing studio, and a videographer.

The 7-minute, 36-second work took months to write, record, shoot, and edit. Along the way, the couple learned lessons they hope to take into their marriage.

Said Ben: “Life is hard, you want to have fun.”

Said Ashley: “I decided I didn’t like my hair in the video. It was too curly. I was like, ‘Ben, we have to go back and re-film everything,’ and he was like, ‘Absolutely not.’ I was bummed for a while, but then of course I ended up loving it.

“He said, ‘You see, every once in a while I am right — even though you always think you are right.’ And I’m like ‘Don’t get used to it.’ ”