When Patel proposed final yr, it occurred, fittingly, in Minecraft. He designed a secret quest line for Nguyen’s character, culminating in a mountaintop scene the place an NPC delivered his proposal through in-game dialog. “He knew I’d say sure earlier than I even reached the top,” Nguyen says, laughing.
So when it got here time to plan their wedding ceremony, Minecraft wasn’t only a nostalgic alternative—it was inevitable. “It’s the closest factor we’ve got to a shared residence,” Nguyen explains. “We’ve lived aside our complete relationship. That world is the place we dwell collectively.” (The couple now lives collectively in Portland.)
Their digital wedding ceremony included 15 customized NPCs recounting their love story, a cathedral constructed from sea lanterns and obsidian blocks, and a scavenger hunt the place friends helped retrieve a “forgotten heirloom” to unlock the altar. Round 50 family and friends attended, logging in from eight nations. “We had some older kinfolk watch through Twitch since they weren’t players,” Patel says.
Whereas some friends have been skeptical at first, each households in the end embraced it. “My dad and mom cherished that it was so private,” Nguyen says. “They didn’t actually perceive Minecraft, however they understood that this was us.”
The entire occasion price round $300, principally for customized pores and skin commissions, server internet hosting, and paying a designer to assist with scripting the NPCs and quests. “Approach cheaper than a real-world venue,” Patel says. “And no seating charts.”
In addition they held a small in-person dinner a number of weeks later for native kinfolk, however for them, the Minecraft ceremony was “the actual wedding ceremony.”
Within the Roblox metaverse, Ashley Rivera, 27, from San Diego, and Luna Kim, 26, from Seoul, held their wedding ceremony inside a pastel fort floating amongst digital clouds. The couple met 5 years in the past in a Roblox vogue design neighborhood, bonding over a shared love of avatar styling, digital artwork, and hyperpop playlists. “We’d spend hours simply designing outfits collectively,” Kim says. “It wasn’t nearly dressing up—it was about creating little variations of ourselves and dreaming up lives for them.”
Although that they had by no means performed Roblox competitively, they have been deeply embedded in its social and artistic subcultures. “We met most of our associates there,” Rivera says. “It’s the place we threw birthday events, hosted artwork reveals, organized karaoke nights. It was our city sq..”
When Kim proposed final summer season, it occurred inside a Roblox “vogue present” they’d constructed collectively. “She walked an avatar down the runway holding an enormous neon ring,” Rivera says. “And I simply began sobbing.”
Their wedding ceremony mirrored that very same playful spirit. Visitors arrived as anime-style avatars wearing themed appears to be like—cottagecore, fairy, or postapocalyptic stylish. As an alternative of a cocktail hour, friends accomplished an impediment course Kim designed. As an alternative of a DJ, they programmed a scripted dance celebration synced to their favourite hyperpop tracks.
