Wedding planners Florian and Liz went down the Metaverse aisle in what seems to be Dubai’s first virtual wedding.
Florian Ughetto and Liz Nunez, who run a wedding planning company in Dubai, UAE, make for a lovely couple. Florian is French, and Nunez is Paraguayan, and because of the legal difficulties in registering their marriage in Dubai, they officially got married in Georgia in 2019. One of the shortcomings of this was that the families of the two sides were not able to witness the event.
On May 19, they once again went down the aisle for a marriage to be solemnized and registered in the metaverse, the first in Dubai and third in the world so far.
According to various media reports, there were three events to mark the union: in-person marriage in the garden of the couple’s friend in The Springs community, a metaverse marriage with 20 guests from 10 countries at Decentraland, and a Zoom event for those who won’t understand the working of Decentraland.
“Our families were upset they could not make it to the wedding in 2019. Now that we had the technology ready for them to come together, we decided to explore it,” media reports quoted Ughetto as saying.
Logistics and Practice
For the metaverse event, the Dubai World Trade Centre Authority (DWTCA), which has been designated as a regulator as well as a comprehensive zone for virtual assets and crypto activities, flanked by a Metaincubator, provided the technical logistics.
“As we walked down the aisle in The Springs, so too did our avatars in the metaverse… We had practiced beforehand and trained our guests on how to log in and interact in the metaverse, and we also had a few wedding crashers who joined in last minute. But it was all in good fun,” Ughetto added.
Costumes and Rings as NFTs
The metaverse marriage of Florian and Liz features costumes and rings bought from OpenSea for $100 and a virtual reception. The Khaleej Times report says that when Liz, the bride, tried to enter the venue, it was already packed to the capacity, and Florian had to request the guests to let Liz enter by one of them leaving the venue. A little unusual but certainly a funny marriage moment!
The rings and costumes will stay with the couple as NFTs, and their marriage vows will become immutable as a smart contract.
“Within a few years from now, it will become the norm to merge both [worlds], virtual and real… People will be able to connect with loved ones in a mixed reality where distance is no longer a concern. Creating unforgettable memories is possible in the virtual world. Our wedding showed us that,” Liz said
Early this month, Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) which is linked to DWTCA, purchased a piece of land in The Sandbox metaverse to open its virtual offices. The acceptance of bitcoin by businesses in Dubai is also growing steadily, with real estate major Damac Properties being the latest to accept BTC and ETH.