This trend-setting minimalist wedding saw only the bride, groom, a digital priest and some virtual invitees. Above all, the union was immortalised using blockchain technology. How?
Anil Narasipuram and Shruti Nair tied the knot in November 2021. Their unique wedding (billed as India’s first blockchain wedding) is among the top viral videos on Twitter.
In his LinkedIn post, Anil Narasipuram revealed that the online ceremony took place after a formal court wedding in Pune, with limited people in attendance, owing to the pandemic. “We kept the numbers small at the registered marriage. However, the union is what we wanted to immortalize. And here comes blockchain technology,” wrote Mr Narasipuram.
The transaction is a permanent, immutable and public record of our commitment to each other on the ETH blockchain.
“Shruti and I made our marriage ‘blockchain official’ with an Ethereum smart contract that consecrated our commitment to each other in the form of an NFT minted on OpenSea,” the design professor wrote.
NFTs are digital assets that exist on a blockchain kept on networked computers. The blockchain allows anyone to verify the authenticity and ownership of an NFT. In this case, an image of the bride’s engagement ring was used to create the NFT, which also had the couple’s wedding vows embedded in it.
“We won’t make any big promises, but we will do everything we can to make this work. Through all our disagreement and conflict, we hope to grow our understanding of each other and ourselves,” their vow on the NFT read. “We don’t expect to be the whole village for each other, but we will be by each other’s side, hand in hand, walking through this adventure together,” they promised.
The ceremony was officiated by a “digital priest” Anoop Pakki.
To prepare for the ceremony, both set up Metamask wallets. The digital priest Anoop Pakki “minted the NFT on OpenSea” and transferred it to them. OpenSea is an online marketplace for non-fungible tokens or NFTs, while Metamask is a cryptocurrency wallet which allows users to access their Ethereum wallet through an app.
After that, the bride and groom sat next to each other, with close friends and family in attendance over Google Meet. They read their vows and received the blessings of their digital priest.
The couple predicts that their wedding would only be the beginning of blockchain weddings in India.
