American couple gets married in a metaverse game

Getting married in the Metaverse is the new fad. Unlike real world marriages that have to follow the Covid protocols and keep the guest count within a certain limit, marriages in Metaverse can be as grand as it was earlier. A Phoenix, Arizona-based couple invited 2,000 guests for their virtual wedding ceremony in the Metaverse on February 5. The virtual marriage took place in a virtual estate owned by a law firm Rose Law on Blockchain platform Decentraland. Cointelegraph reported, the law firm has formalised a framework for marriages in metaverse, which includes a virtual premarital agreement based on the virtual identities of the couple and their digital assets.  

The Phoenix couple’s marriage was issued a metaverse marriage licence which recorded and tokenised their virtual avatars and place of marriage as a non-fungible token (NFT). The couple had left gifts in the form of NFTs for guests who attended the wedding, which were reportedly claimed within 20 minutes of the opening of the wedding ceremony.   

Metaverse marriages are not limited to any particular geographies. The interest in the technology skyrocketed in 2021, especially after Facebook announced its plans to become a metaverse company. As per DappRadar, India recorded the fifth highest interest in metaverse with 500,000 Indians showing interest in it and NFTs as of November 2021.  

At home, on February 6, a Tamil Nadu-based couple tied the knot in a Hogwart themed virtual marriage ceremony in the Metaverse. Around 2,000 virtual guests were invited. After the wedding, GuardianLink.io, an NFT Ecosystem Technology Framework, launched a NFT collection on Beyondlife.Club which included 12 NFTs with 11 unique NFTs of the bride and groom’s virtual avatars. The wedding NFTs were reportedly sold within seconds of the drop.  

Also read: From resumes to weddings, people are lapping up the metaverse 

Though metaverse weddings are catching on and couples and law firms are taking steps to ensure they are legally binding, legal experts are not convinced. According to American Marriage Ministries (AMM), couples are required to appear as their real self for a wedding ceremony, not as digital avatars, reported Business Insider.  

Metaverse is a virtual platform where people interact with their 3d avatars and own virtual assets like property and items. Though these virtual marriages were accessible through a web browser, the metaverse conceived by Meta Platforms is based on augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) and will require users to put on headsets to join the metaverse.  

According to a Bloomberg analysis, global revenue from Metaverse companies is expected to reach $800 billion by 2024, up from $500 billion in 2020.