In a story that is as confusing as NFTs itself, this Indian couple decided to exchange vows in the form of NFTs and had a digital priest to officiate the whole thing.
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Anil Narasipuram and Shruti Nair had the classic lockdown romance. He slid into her DMs, chatted her up on Twitter, and 5 months later, they were ready to call it official.
The couple residing in India’s tech city, Pune, decided to make things more high-tech than one would expect when exchanging vows.
After the government ban on NFTs was lifted in India, the couple decided to make use of that opportunity and even cover the 30% tax they would have to pay to acquire them.
PHOTO: ANIL NARASIPURAM
The digital ceremony conducted on blockchain is apparently stronger than most marriage vows.
“The record of our wedding is permanent, immutable and public. The blockchain ledger is tamper-proof. No one in the world can change the fact that it is recorded on the blockchain, which is a sign of our commitment to each other. [It] is a very powerful statement about our marriage itself,”
PHOTO: ANIL NARASIPURAM
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While India is still trying to figure out what to do when it comes to cryptocurrencies, this couple is streets ahead with its thinking and already minting their love life.
Narasipuram thinks of the NFT as a digital ring. “The best part about it was that it was very personalised. It was about us and what we are looking forward to in our future. We were able to make it about our love and our story, which we were able to capture in the blockchain wedding,”
PHOTO: ANIL NARASIPURAM
Before this digital ceremony, the couple also got their wedding officiated at a courthouse.
For the digital ceremony, however, the two opened up their digital wallets decked in traditional Indian wedding clothes as the family looked on through Google Meet.
PHOTO: ANIL NARASIPURAM
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Anoop Pakki, the groom’s cousin was the digital priest for the event. Pakki blessed the two and then proceeded to transfer the token to them which they then exchanged between themselves. Pakki pronounced them husband and wife by “the power vested [in him] by Ethereum.”
“My inspiration for doing a blockchain wedding came from a belief in the potential of blockchain. Having been in the space, I really find it to be a truly new paradigm in the way we think of trust online,”
PHOTO: ANIL NARASIPURAM
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I was interested in seeing how we can apply this technology, and this seemed like a perfect fit. My then wife-to-be was willing to oblige and happy to participate in my crazy ideas.”
This was surprisingly enough not the first blockchain wedding, with a couple using Bitcoin to seal the deal in 2014. Another couple had a Hogwarts-themed wedding in the Metaverse.
Nair said, “My mother is still trying to wrap her head around what happened. [My family] is not from the world of crypto or blockchain so making them understand is a little harder and we are still trying, but they are happy,”
PHOTO: ANIL NARASIPURAM
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While friends and family didn’t quite understand, they took it in stride.
“It was a mixed bag of reactions. Some people were not happy because they believed that we were trying to replace traditional weddings with this digital wedding, which is not the case. Some questioned the legitimacy of the wedding,”
“Some had some witty comments like, ‘Will you have your kids on blockchain? Will you mint your kids?’ It was funny. It’s always hard for society to accept new things, but you never know – it might become a popular thing in the future.”
Source: NDTV