People celebrate their weddings in different ways...especially comedians.

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Some families throw a big party, inviting all their friends and relations. Others have a simple civil ceremony, and might not even have a reception to follow.

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Tim Steeves, who proposed to his girlfriend Sonya Buyting at the Just for Laughs Festival, will marry her this week, and will throw a comedy show in celebration.

Comedian Tim Steeves is bringing a brand new concept to Saint John, though, when he and his friends put on The Tim Steeves' Wedding Guest All-Stars Show at the Imperial Theatre on June 26 (tickets are $27 and are on sale now). Steeves is coming home to New Brunswick to marry his fiancé Sonya Buyting that weekend, and his guests are going to perform the show the Thursday before the wedding.

There are a couple reasons Steeves, who's brought his comedy to audiences across Canada and around the world, cooked up this plan. The biggest reason is that so many of his friends are outstanding comics themselves, with international festival and top-notch TV writing under their belts.

"Just as we started getting the RSVPs for the wedding, I realized we were going to have eight or 10 really great comics coming and I thought, 'Well why don't we put them to work'," he says. "Once I knew they were coming to New Brunswick, I just asked them if they'd be into doing a show, and everybody was into it."

The other reason behind the show is that Steeves, a triple Gemini award winner and writer for The Rick Mercer Report, has a history of doing things differently. He proposed to his fiancé on stage and in front of a capacity crowd at last year's Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal.

"I just wanted to do something splashy," he says. "We were starting to talk about marriage a little bit, and I wanted to surprise her, and my opportunities to surprise her, that window was starting to close. So when I went to Montreal to do Just for Laughs, I realized that well, maybe in front of the St. Denis crowd would be good. There was over 2,000 people there, and they were taping it for TV, so we got a DVD of it.

"She enjoyed it, she enjoyed it. It freaked her out, it definitely took her by surprise and stuff. That's all I wanted. I just wanted to give her a good shock." Buyting is looking forward to the performance before their wedding as well, Steeves says.

"She's excited to see it. She's seen most of those guys perform, so she's excited to take her family to the show. It's a great show. It's not the kind of show that would happen very often around New Brunswick, you know. Lots of these guys have performed in the Maritimes before, but to have them all in one show is pretty neat." But, she's not the only person who should enjoy the show, Steeves says. He thinks Saint John is in for a treat.

"Tim Rykert is just coming off opening for Michael Bublé, he's just played Carnegie Hall and stuff, Steve Patterson is just back from headlining the Australian Comedy Festival, and Owen Parker works with us at the Rick Mercer Report, so it's really top flight guys. It's going to be a great show."

Comedian Harry Doupe will also be at the show. Doupe has opened for famous parody artist Weird Al Yankovic at the Air Canada Centre, but Steeves says Doupe won't follow in Yankovic's footsteps and unleash an accordion number on the audience.

"I think he left that to Weird Al," he says. "Harry's hysterical. He's written for the NHL awards, and he's a real sports guy, so Harry has lots of real funny sports stuff." Other performers include Irwin Barker, Fraser Young, Nile Sequin, Simon Rakoff, and Randy Metson.

"Everybody that's on the show has pretty big credentials, everybody's done all the international festivals and lots of TV and stuff," Steeves says "It's such a great lineup; I just can't wait to show off all my great buddies." Even though he's looking forward to the show, Steeves is more excited about his wedding.

"I'd better say the wedding, right?" he laughs. "I'm no dummy, I'm going to say the wedding. I think the show will be a lot of fun, but I'm a little more excited and nervous about the wedding." Steeves knows things might get a little complicated having the show so close to the actual wedding.

"It's going to be a little hairy," he says. And even though he doesn't plan to get married again, the show itself may be the start of a tradition.

"The idea that this could be something we could do on a regular basis, that idea has already been floated around so, sure, we'll see how it goes. We'll get this one under our belt and see how it goes," he says.