By
Mayowa Adebajo
April 10th, 2024
While Rose Law Group has assured that the marriage ceremony and certifications were valid, some legal experts hold a contrary opinion.
Metaverse technology is still yet to find its feet in the burgeoning Web 3 world, but that has not stopped Phoenix couple from tying the knot using this technology. This weekend, over 2000 virtual crowd, and a Supreme Court Justice officiant Clint Bolick witnessed the meta-wedding of Ryan and Candice Hurley who took the first step to forever by hosting their wedding on the Metaverse.
The wedding is the first metaverse wedding and was legalized and overseen by Rose Law Group.
Speaking at the event, Rose Law Group President Jordan Rose proclaimed her excitement about her firm’s feat of being the first to make a metaverse wedding a reality.
She acknowledged the fact that Metaverse technology was still in its early stage, however, the law firm “developed the legal paradigm for a legally recognized marriage.”
It was revealed that the Group created a “meta-marriage framework” with the fusion of a “Virtual Premarital Agreement.” The couple’s virtual identities were then recognized and recorded on a blockchain.
It should be noted that the couple had first married themselves in the real world 14 years ago after meeting on Match.com.
Metaverse Wedding
The Hurley’s plan for a hitch-free special day didn’t go as they would have envisaged as they faced some technical challenges in the marriage procession.
The first challenge was the number of attendees at the wedding which Decentraland struggled to contain, another challenge was the idea of NFT gifts which were claimed only twenty minutes into the events.
Other challenges faced were the failure of the bride’s digital appearance where in some cases it failed to appear while in others she was wearing a dress or a hoodie.
Is a Metaverse Marriage Valid?
While Rose Law Group has assured that the marriage ceremony and certifications were valid, some legal experts hold a contrary opinion.
The American Marriage Institute, for example, mandates that couples must appear in their physical selves and not as a digital replica. Some states in the United States do not even recognize a marriage that was carried out by an officiant remotely or when couples are in different locations.
But Rose insists on the validity of the marriage as she says that “we see the future of the metaverse as being truly decentralized and existing almost completely on the blockchain, so the future of marriage in the metaverse will not need to have a record of their marriage in the real world”.