Matched in Metaverse
Dinesh S P and Janaganandhini Ramaswamy are all set to host India’s first wedding reception on the Metaverse on February 6th.
“AFTER THE TAMIL NADU GOVERNMENT ANNOUNCED A LOCKDOWN (THAT HAS NOW BEEN LIFTED), I WAS WORRIED THAT MY WEDDING PLANS WOULD GO AWRY. WE EXPLORED OPTIONS FOR AN ONLINE WEDDING. THEN I FELT THAT WE COULD MAKE ANOTHER USE CASE FOR METAVERSE IF WE HOSTED OUR RECEPTION, SO I DECIDED TO GO AHEAD. ALSO, AS A MIDDLECLASS PERSON, AFFORDING A THEMATIC WEDDING IN REAL LIFE IS GOING TO BE EXPENSIVE — METAVERSE WOULD BE THE BEST OPTION.”
Are you the kind who dreams of getting married in a unique place — maybe on Mars or in a castle? Well, this is no longer fantasy, the Metaverse is here to give wings to your dreams and your imagination is the only limit.
And this is exactly what Dinesh S P, a project associate with IIT Madras had in mind. As part of his “love cum arranged marriage” with fiancé Janaganandhini Ramaswamy, he hit upon the idea of having a wedding reception in the Metaverse. The couple met when they were doing a project they did together. “I was into the Metaverse space and crypto and blockchain technology for the last year and a half. Recently Facebook also rebranded as Meta. Typically, new technologies take a lot of time to come to India and I felt that this needs to change. After the Tamil Nadu Government announced a lockdown (that has now been lifted), I was worried that my wedding plans would go awry.”
Hence, he started exploring options for an online wedding and explored many things including Zoom. “But then I felt that we could make another use case for Metaverse if we hosted our reception, so I decided to go ahead. Also, as a middle-class person, affording a thematic wedding in real life is going to be expensive, so the Metaverse would be the best option.”
Another aspect that Dinesh had in mind was that Janaganandhini’s father had passed away in April and all their marriage discussions, invariably left her teary eyed. “This also affected me emotionally and I started working on things like a hologram. However, once we decided on the Metaverse, we created an avatar for him so that he could be present to bless us.”
The couple will get married in the morning of the February 6th and will host their reception in the evening. As both are self-confessed Potterheads, their wedding reception will have a Harry Potter theme. And to do this, Dinesh found Vignesh Selvaraj of TardiVerse, a TN based “new gen mixed reality based Metaverse powered by Blockchain tech company” on Linkedin.
Vignesh explains, “Metaverse helps you escape from a real world and create their own avatar in this world, by just using their phone or laptop. We are working on Shark technology and are a team of 13 of us who are bringing this to reality. We need 10-20 days, and it can cost upwards of `2 lakhs depending on the complexity.” The company will be giving guests a link and password for them to attend the reception in the metaverse.
CoinSwitch Kuber, India’s most trusted crypto exchange is the key sponsor and is presenting what is being called Asia’s first metaverse reception. “In fact, we have had a lot of brands approach us, but I felt CoinSwitch was the perfect choice as it would be a win-win for all. We have four other sponsors including Lo-cal a healthy food café that is sponsoring a limited number of meals for guests. An independent musician from Tamil Nadu will also perform at the reception."
GuardianLink has launched an exclusive non fungible token (NFT) collection of Asia’s first metaverse wedding, on BeyondLife.club, including Wedding invitations as NFT.
And at the reception guests will be able to interact with the bride and groom and give them gift vouchers and even cryptos as gifts.