The Covid-19 pandemic has impeded almost all entertainment from our lives. Be it wedding or birthday parties, the restrictions have limited the guest entries to any occasion to curb the spread of the pandemic. Being this the wedding season across all over India, people wish to invite all their close ones which may sometimes exceed the limit. Thus, to avoid all those snags, a couple from Tamil Nadu organised their wedding reception in the metaverse.
Dinesh SP and Janaganandhini Ramaswamy got married on February 6 in Sivalingapuram, a small tribal village located in Tamil Nadu. However, all their friends and family across the world could attend the wedding reception as it took place in the virtual world.
For the unversed, the metaverse is a virtual 3D space where users can ‘live’ and interact with each other through digital avatars. It comprises multiple elements of technology such as augmented reality, blockchain, and virtual reality.
In an interview with The New Indian Express, Dinesh said, “Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I had to cap the number of friends and family at 100 for my marriage and reception. So, I decided to solemnize my marriage in the presence of a small group of people at Sivalingapuram and hold my reception virtually on metaverse. I was also working on blockchain technology for the past one year.”
Finally into Asia’s 1st Metaverse Wedding. Interesting experience. @beyondlifeclub @TardiVerse @kshatriyan2811 pic.twitter.com/zhGPTuedOf
— Divit (@divitonchain) February 6, 2022
The duo being Potterheads opted for a Hogwarts-themed reception. A start-up called TardiVerse took a month for them to create this metaverse where the reception took place. Apart from the avatars of the bride and groom, an avatar of the bride’s late father was also created.
“My father-in-law passed away last April,” Dines told CNN before the wedding. “So, I’m creating a 3D avatar that looks similar to (him), and he will bless me and my fiancee. That’s something we can only do in the metaverse.”
Photos and videos were shared online of Asia’s first metaverse wedding reception. One of the videos shows a musical concert that was conducted in the metaverse from Chennai.
At @kshatriyan2811 ‘s meta wedding ???? @TardiVerse #asiasfirst #Metaverse #metawedding pic.twitter.com/RRGyEzUz4Y
— cryptopangu.nft (@CryptoPangu) February 6, 2022
Besides, the wedding also had NFTs or non-fungible tokens. A special edition of NFTs was launched by GuardianLink and are available on Beyondlife.club marketplace. The NFTs featured artworks and backgrounds with attires from Harry Potter and cyberpunk era apart from the classic wedding attire worn by groom, bride, and bride’s late father.
Dinesh, a project associate with IIT Madras previously in an interview with Times of India explained how the idea of metaverse wedding popped in his mind.
“I came up with the idea of having a Metaverse wedding reception, and my fiancee also liked the idea,” he said. “I have been into crypto and blockchain technology, and have been mining ethereum, a form of cryptocurrency, for the last one year. Since blockchain is the basic technology of Metaverse, when my wedding was fixed, I thought of having a reception in Metaverse,” he added.
