When Patel proposed last year, it happened, fittingly, in Minecraft. He designed a secret quest line for Nguyen’s character, culminating in a mountaintop scene where an NPC delivered his proposal via in-game dialog. “He knew I’d say yes before I even reached the end,” Nguyen says, laughing.
So when it came time to plan their wedding, Minecraft wasn’t just a nostalgic choice—it was inevitable. “It’s the closest thing we have to a shared home,” Nguyen explains. “We’ve lived apart our whole relationship. That world is where we live together.” (The couple now lives together in Portland.)
Their virtual wedding included 15 custom NPCs recounting their love story, a cathedral constructed from sea lanterns and obsidian blocks, and a scavenger hunt where guests helped retrieve a “forgotten heirloom” to unlock the altar. Around 50 friends and family attended, logging in from eight countries. “We had some older relatives watch via Twitch since they weren’t gamers,” Patel says.
While some guests were skeptical at first, both families ultimately embraced it. “My parents loved that it was so personal,” Nguyen says. “They didn’t really understand Minecraft, but they understood that this was us.”
The whole event cost around $300, mostly for custom skin commissions, server hosting, and paying a designer to help with scripting the NPCs and quests. “Way cheaper than a real-world venue,” Patel says. “And no seating charts.”
They also held a small in-person dinner a few weeks later for local relatives, but for them, the Minecraft ceremony was “the real wedding.”
In the Roblox metaverse, Ashley Rivera, 27, from San Diego, and Luna Kim, 26, from Seoul, held their wedding inside a pastel castle floating among digital clouds. The couple met five years ago in a Roblox fashion design community, bonding over a shared love of avatar styling, digital art, and hyperpop playlists. “We’d spend hours just designing outfits together,” Kim says. “It wasn’t just about dressing up—it was about creating little versions of ourselves and dreaming up lives for them.”
Though they had never played Roblox competitively, they were deeply embedded in its social and creative subcultures. “We met most of our friends there,” Rivera says. “It’s where we threw birthday parties, hosted art shows, organized karaoke nights. It was our town square.”
When Kim proposed last summer, it happened inside a Roblox “fashion show” they’d built together. “She walked an avatar down the runway holding a giant neon ring,” Rivera says. “And I just started sobbing.”
Their wedding reflected that same playful spirit. Guests arrived as anime-style avatars dressed in themed looks—cottagecore, fairy, or postapocalyptic chic. Instead of a cocktail hour, guests completed an obstacle course Kim designed. Instead of a DJ, they programmed a scripted dance party synced to their favorite hyperpop tracks.
