Jim & Pam’s Wedding on ‘The Office’ Was Supposed to Have an Entirely Different Ending

We still remember every single detail of Pam and Jim’s Niagara Falls wedding on The Office. But as it turns out, the hourlong installment almost had an entirely different ending.

In honor of the 10th anniversary of the episode, titled “Niagara,” Entertainment Weekly sat down for an interview with director Paul Feig, executive producer Greg Daniels and Mindy Kaling, who wrote, executive produced and starred as Kelly Kapoor in the NBC sitcom.

While discussing Jim and Pam’s wedding, Feig admitted that the original script didn’t have a happy ending. In fact, it included Pam’s ex-boyfriend Roy (David Denman) riding in on a horse to object the nuptials.

“[Roy] rides into the church on a horse to sweep Pam off her feet like a knight in shining armor and declares, ‘I have an objection,’” Feig said. “And she’s like, ‘What are you doing? No, I want to get married.’ She sends him away, so he has to ride his horse back out of the church. But then, in an absolute insane thing, they had this crazy ending where Dwight [Rainn Wilson] gets the horse and rides it into the falls.”

Although Daniels fully supported the horse storyline, they decided to go in a different direction once the cast pointed out the absurdity.

“Then we got to the table read and I was the last defender of the horse,” Daniels said. “The entire staff and actors were yelling at me: ‘Don’t ruin Jim and Pam’s wedding with a horse!’”

Instead, they opted to include the iconic dance number led by Michael Scott (Steve Carell), which was inspired by a real viral video. “That video was so joyous and fun,” Kaling explained. “That was obviously that couples’ friends and family, and we thought it would be pretty funny and misguided for Michael to equate the co-workers of the office as Jim and Pam’s beloved close family and friends and do the same thing.”

Phew, that was close.