"Open up and say AAaaaAhhHhh!!!~!~"

Yes! I'm getting married ! Getting married in a virtual realm ;) I'm getting married in this online game I'm currently attached to, RAN Online. My wedding is on this Saturday, 17 November 2007.

RAN Online is a fun simulation that gets some parts of life right. We all get cranky if we don't have enough fun, gold, armors etc. But when it comes to marriage, the game is very different. It's very simple, you only need a couple - a male and a female ( yet to see any gay or lesbian couple yet ). Then it is safe to turn on the heat, by sending out invitation cards to friends, guild members etc. Only those with invitational card will be able to enter the wedding hall. The couples will then change into wedding clothes and that's it! You can appoint your own best man, priest, etc. Ahhh and not to be forgotten, you can actually fire up some cool fireworks. Use your imagination. Once married, that's it! No divorce. They can, however, marry other players.

It's not the first time this sort of thing has been done, of course, but it is a strange little collision of our social gestures in the real world with the virtual one. Does it mean any less or more when two people commit to each other in virtual space rather than physical space? It's interesting that it's this one ritual, perhaps our most important and symbolic, that have made it into RAN Online. I've never seen a virtual funeral or graduation, but maybe that's the next big ritual to make the jump.

As a player, it's not really my thing (I find social interactions like weddings much more meaningful in the real world, and would rather leave the virtual world for things like fighting mobs and owning some asses), but there is obviously a draw for this kind of thing-- in almost every MMORPG, it pops up at one point or another. Heck, some folks have met through the Net and fallen for each other, and I know a couple of the success stories myself, just as I know of the not so successful ones. Stuff happens. And it happens

to me.