Many couples have had tiny wedding ceremonies with friends and relatives digitally attending, but Anil Narasipuram and Shruti Nair from Pune appear to have genuinely redefined festivities during the pandemic.
The pair married on the blockchain, making them the first in India to do so. Narasipuram and Nair married online in November 2021, with a “digital priest” officiating the event.
“Shruti and I made our marriage ‘blockchain official’ using an Ethereum smart contract that sanctified our commitment to each other in the form of an NFT (non-fungible token) produced on OpenSea,” Narasipuram, a design professor, said on LinkedIn.
We started the ceremony as soon as we got back from the Registrar's Office in Pune. To prepare for the ceremony, both my wife and I set up @MetaMask wallets and our digital priest @anoop_V1 minted the NFT on @opensea and transferred it to me. (4/8) pic.twitter.com/15818pWPZi
— Anil N (@vaayustudios) January 22, 2022
Shruti Nair and Anil Narasipuram, both of Pune, were on their laptops soon after their court marriage in November 2021, confirming their relationship in blockchain technology via a ‘Ethereum smart contract.’ Anoop Pakki, a ‘digital priest,’ mined an NFT on the OpenSea platform and gave it to the couple — using the powers granted to him by Ethereum, of course.
The couple read their vow: “We won’t make any big promises, but we will do everything we can to make this work. Through all our disagreement and conflict, we hope to grow our understanding of each other and ourselves. We don’t expect to be the whole village for each other, but we will be by each other’s side, hand in hand, walking through this adventure, together”. It was now a part of their NFT. And in 15-minutes, the blockchain ceremony was over.
“The transaction is a permanent, immutable and public record of our commitment to each other on the ETH blockchain,” Anil stated on his LinkedIn page.
Metaverse weddings
While this marriage is not the first of its sort in the world, it does demonstrate a changing trend. Rebecca Rose and Peter Kacherginsky exchanged virtual rings (NFTs) using their cellphones during a traditional Jewish ceremony in the United States in March 2021. Their tale quickly spread on social media and became viral.
Most people get married in a place of religious worship, on a beach, or in the mountains. Peter (@_iphelix) and I are NOT most people. We got married on the #blockchain. 1/7 pic.twitter.com/2ExexrlLbZ
— Rebecca Kacherginsky (@rgoldilox) April 2, 2021
