Decentraland, a metaverse platform built on the Ethereum network that allows users to create, engage with and monetize digital content through a variety of interactive experiences, has become the first metaverse to host a wedding.
An American couple had their wedding with their digital identities on Saturday, the 5th of February 2022, in the first-ever marriage that took place in the Metaverse. The wedding ceremony took place in Decentraland and had all the features of a physical wedding which includes witnesses, a Supreme Court Justice official and a virtual crowd of 2,000 guests.
The bride and groom, Ryan and Candice Hurley hired Rose Law Group to legally formalize the marriage. The group’s Founder and President Jordan Rose claims it was the first-ever wedding hosted on any blockchain-based Metaverse.
The wedding ceremony took place on Rose Law Group’s estate in Decentraland’s metaverse. The law group developed a “meta-marriage framework,” by incorporating a “Virtual Premarital Agreement,” which identified the couple’s virtual identities and digital assets as recorded on the blockchain.
A “Meta-Marriage License” identified, recorded, and tokenized the couple’s virtual identities and place of marriage on the blockchain as an NFT. Jordan Rose explained, “There currently is no legal framework for marriages in the Metaverse, so whether or not it will be legally binding is more a question of contract.
We see the future of the metaverse as being truly decentralized and existing almost completely on the blockchain, so the future of marriage in the metaverse will not need to have a record of their marriage in the real world.”
Although this is a great innovation and use of blockchain technology, the event didn’t go without its challenges. The wedding had some technical issues. For instance, Decentraland struggled to handle the number of guests in attendance.
Another issue seen was Candice character not visible to come guest. Depending on which server attendees had been split into, the bride was wearing a dress, a hoodie, or wasn’t there at all.
After struggling to make the ceremony work on Decentraland, one attendee instructed the guests to head to Rose Law Group’s Instagram, where the real-world couple was sealing their vows via a livestream.
Despite Rose’s assurances about the legality of the wedding, it appears that many legal experts remain unconvinced. According to the American Marriage Ministries, people must appear as their real-life selves during a legal wedding ceremony, not as their digital counterparts.
Furthermore, most states in the U.S. don’t even allow a couple to marry by an officiant remotely via a video conference, or if the couple is in separate locations at the time of the ceremony.
Although the wedding is a first of its kind in many ways, it’s certainly not the only instance of a couple wanting to get married on the blockchain. In April 2021, a Californian couple who work at crypto exchange Coinbase wrote an Ethereum smart contract to issue tokenized “rings” as NFTs during their wedding.
In 2014, the Disney World Bitcoin Conference hosted the first blockchain wedding, recording the following message on-chain “for better or worse, ’til death do us part because the blockchain is forever.”
