Metaverse weddings – A budding industry or a passing phase?

Weddings are a major milestone in everyone’s life, a day when couples go to extreme lengths to make their special day truly stand out. With the wedding season already underway, we are witnessing fresh trends in décor, wedding trousseau, wedding destinations and much more. However, it’s the latest trend of hosting weddings in the metaverse which has truly taken the industry by storm.

When Dinesh SP and Janaganandhini Ramaswamy got married on February 6th 2022 in Sivalingapuram, a small tribal village of Tamil Nadu, little did they imagine that their wedding would turn out to be so out of the ordinary, and will create a new trend among youngsters.

The first Indian couple to have hosted their wedding reception in the metaverse, the two chose a Harry Potter theme for the special occasion. Following in the footsteps, Bhopal based couple Abhijeet Goel and Dr Sanskrati Jain also tied the knot in the metaverse, recently.

What is Metaverse?

Metaverse is an augmented reality based on the internet that you are inside of, instead of merely looking at. It is a 3D world where you walk around as an avatar, interact with other avatars and perform a host of activities like buy and sell virtual stuff, go to work, form communities, play games, and now, even get married. The metaverse is a hyper-real alternative world for people to coexist in, offering a combination of multiple elements of technology such as artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR).

The Metaverse Wedding Industry

The metaverse wedding industry in India is at a very nascent stage. However, given the boundless scope for digital innovations, the industry could really go a long way in generating huge opportunities for the new breed of virtual wedding curators. In a metaverse wedding, a virtual space designer creates a virtual venue, customizes the bride and groom’s wedding avatars, and can even replicate a full-fledged wedding ceremony with the décor as selected by the couple. It could be a beach wedding or an “I Do” at the top of a snow covered peak, or possibly any theme that one can imagine. The guests are invited to log on via cloud and there begins the virtual wedding celebration!

Could the Big Fat Indian Wedding become a passé?

It is simply too early to predict whether metaverse weddings will take over the physical wedding ceremonies. Also, in a close knit society as that of India, wedding functions are a big reason for families and friends to get together and have fun. Having said that, the millennials and Gen Z are quite innovative in their approach towards life, and given the strong connect that they have with the digital world, it won’t be wrong to say that the new trend of metaverse weddings is here to stay.

Till a few years back, virtual weddings would not have got many takers, but the pandemic triggered digital revolution has made us realise that with technology, anything is possible. When the government put a restriction on the number of guests, people started live streaming their weddings so that their extended families and friends (who could not be physically present) could also participate in the celebrations. Hence, metaverse weddings are an extension to the digital route that we already were on.

Also, metaverse weddings are a great alternative for those who don’t believe in spending on a ‘Big Fat Indian Wedding’ and would rather use the money to secure their future, probably by way of buying some non-fungible token (NFTs). A metaverse wedding reportedly could cost anywhere upwards of Rs 30,000 and up to a few lakhs, depending on the theme, décor, number of guests, etc.

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