Pune Couple Takes NFT Vows At India's First Blockchain Wedding Officiated By Digital Priest

India's first blockchain wedding took place in Pune in January. The couple, Anil Narasipuram and Shruti Nair decided to get married using blockchain technology in November 2021. They documented their wedding in a Twitter thread and LinkedIn. Their post has since gone viral giving inspiration to others to follow the suit.

In a LinkedIn post, the groom Anil Narasipuram shared that the online wedding ceremony took place after the couple had a formal court wedding in Pune, Maharashtra. It was due to the pandemic that the couple had a limited number of guests at the court. Narasipuram wrote, "Considering the pandemic era that we live in we decided to keep things small with a courthouse wedding, also known as a 'Registered Marriage' in India. We also decided to immortalize our union using blockchain technology."

India's First Blockchain Wedding:

He said that he made his marriage with his wife Shruti "blockchain official" using an Ethereum smart contract that ordained their commitment towards each other in form of a non-fungible token (NFT). As per his biodata on social media sites, Narasipuram is a design professor. The NFTs are digital assets that exist on a blockchain. The blockchain allows anyone to verify the authenticity and ownership of an NFT. The bride Shruti Narasipuram's engagement ring was used to make the NFT which had the couple's vows embedded in it. One Anoop Pakki officiated the wedding as a "digital priest".

Narasipuram wrote that he and his wife both had to set up Metamask wallets to prepare for the wedding ceremony. Anoop Pakki minted the NFT on OpenSea and transferred it to the couple. OpenSea happens to be an online marketplace for NFTs and Metamask is a cryptocurrency wallet which allows users to access their Ethereum wallet.

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The bride and groom sat next to each other with their family members and friends attending the ceremony via Google Meet. The couple read their vows and received blessings from their digital priest. The groom then made things official by transferring the NFT to his wife's digital wallet. The groom wrote, "The transaction is a permanent, immutable and public record of our commitment to each other on the ETH blockchain." Narasipuram believes that his wedding will the beginning of blockchain weddings in India.

The trend of tech-weddings started during the pandemic when couples took help of the internet to have their loved ones attend their special day by avoiding physical gatherings. Recently, a couple in Tamil Nadu hosted their wedding reception in metaverse. They had their guests present themselves in digital avatars to attend the couple's Hogwarts-themed online reception. One couple in West Bengal had the guests attend their wedding via Google Meet and delivered food to their house via Zomato.