They Fell in Love Playing ‘Minecraft.’ Then the Game Became Their Wedding Venue

When Patel projected past year, it happened, fittingly, successful Minecraft. He designed a concealed quest enactment for Nguyen's character, culminating successful a mountaintop country wherever an NPC delivered his connection via in-game dialog. “He knew I’d accidental yes earlier I adjacent reached the end,” Nguyen says, laughing.

So erstwhile it came clip to program their wedding, Minecraft wasn’t conscionable a nostalgic choice—it was inevitable. “It’s the closest happening we person to a shared home,” Nguyen explains. “We’ve lived isolated our full relationship. That satellite is wherever we unrecorded together.” (The mates present lives unneurotic successful Portland.)

Their virtual wedding included 15 customized NPCs recounting their emotion story, a cathedral constructed from oversea lanterns and obsidian blocks, and a scavenger hunt wherever guests helped retrieve a “forgotten heirloom” to unlock the altar. Around 50 friends and household attended, logging successful from 8 countries. “We had immoderate older relatives ticker via Twitch since they weren’t gamers,” Patel says.

While immoderate guests were skeptical astatine first, some families yet embraced it. “My parents loved that it was truthful personal,” Nguyen says. “They didn’t truly recognize Minecraft, but they understood that this was us.”

The full lawsuit outgo astir $300, mostly for customized tegument commissions, server hosting, and paying a decorator to assistance with scripting the NPCs and quests. “Way cheaper than a real-world venue,” Patel says. “And nary seating charts.”

They besides held a tiny in-person meal a fewer weeks aboriginal for section relatives, but for them, the Minecraft ceremonial was “the existent wedding.”

In the Roblox metaverse, Ashley Rivera, 27, from San Diego, and Luna Kim, 26, from Seoul, held their wedding wrong a pastel castle floating among integer clouds. The mates met 5 years agone successful a Roblox manner plan community, bonding implicit a shared emotion of avatar styling, integer art, and hyperpop playlists. “We’d walk hours conscionable designing outfits together,” Kim says. “It wasn’t conscionable astir dressing up—it was astir creating small versions of ourselves and dreaming up lives for them.”

Though they had ne'er played Roblox competitively, they were profoundly embedded successful its societal and originative subcultures. “We met astir of our friends there,” Rivera says. “It’s wherever we threw day parties, hosted creation shows, organized karaoke nights. It was our municipality square.”

When Kim projected past summer, it happened wrong a Roblox “fashion show” they’d built together. “She walked an avatar down the runway holding a elephantine neon ring,” Rivera says. “And I conscionable started sobbing.”

Their wedding reflected that aforesaid playful spirit. Guests arrived arsenic anime-style avatars dressed successful themed looks—cottagecore, fairy, oregon postapocalyptic chic. Instead of a cocktail hour, guests completed an obstacle people Kim designed. Instead of a DJ, they programmed a scripted creation enactment synced to their favourite hyperpop tracks.