To make its newest romance video game stand out from the competition, a Japanese company is giving users the chance to marry their virtual girlfriends in a real life wedding ceremony, with the help of VR technology.

At first glance, Niitzuma LovelyxCation is a romance and dating simulator like many others in Japan. It lets players court one of three anime protagonists – Yuki Isurugi (long black hair), Aiko Kurihara (short brown hair), or Nono Naruse (blond hair) – and eventually get married to them, but in order to make the illusion of a virtual marriage more believable, it plans to organize a real-life wedding for the “grooms” in an actual chapel, where they can exchange vows with their cartoony betrothed.

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Last month, artist Aaron Chervenak drove from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, Nevada to finally take the love for his smartphone to the next level by marrying it at a small wedding chapel. And yeah, in case you’re wondering, he even put a ring on it.

A study conducted by internet security giant Kaspersky found that a quarter of people ranked their smartphone as more or equally important to them as their parents. For a lot of us, it’s the last thing we interact with before going to sleep and the first thing we check when we wake up. It’s with us pretty much 24/7, and we connect with it on so many levels. “We look to it for solace, to calm us down, to put us to sleep, to ease our mind, and to me that’s also what a relationship is about,” Aaron Chervenak said. So in a sense, my smartphone has been my longest relationship. That’s why I decided to see what it was like to actually marry a phone.”

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Mere minutes after meeting in person for the first time, a California woman and a New York man got hitched at the Ontario International Airport on Friday. They’re now calling their meeting an ‘insta-engagement’ and ‘insta-wedding’, paying tribute to the fact that they first got in touch on Instagram in March last year.

After three days of wedded bliss, Erica Harris and Arte Vann claim they are still madly in love. “I didn’t realise how much I love this man,” Erica, a mother-of-three. “Now we’ve they’ve spent three days together, I can’t believe how much I love him.”

The decision to marry was premeditated; reporters from CBS News were waiting at the airport to film Erica Harris and Arte Vann tie the knot. In fact, Erica was the one who informed CBS about her wedding plans and invited them to record it, so that her new mother-in-law could watch it on TV. “I believe this man deserves a lot of love, and I want to give him the love he gives me,” she said. “[Calling CBS] was a present to his mom, because she wouldn’t be at the wedding since we were eloping.”

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Although most young Argentinians aren’t even thinking about marriage these days, they seem quite fond of wedding ceremonies. So they’ve come up with a bizarre party trend of fake weddings, where groups of 20- and 30-somethings get together to attend wedding-themed parties complete with fake bride and groom.

The idea was the brainchild of 26-year-old publicist Martin Acerbi, who, a couple of years ago, organised a fake wedding with four of his friends in La Plata, about 32 miles away from Buenos Aires. “It all started two years ago with a group of friends: we realised we hadn’t been to a wedding in a long time because hardly anybody is getting married anymore,” Acerbi says.

To his surprise, the event was a huge success which got him thinking about a new business. The friends went on to found ‘Falsa Boda’, a fake wedding organising company, in November 2013. They rent out real wedding locations, hire caterers, florists, and DJs, and make everything look like a real wedding. Except, there is no ‘happily ever after’.

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The Epinard Nasu Hotel, in Japan’s Tochigi Prefecture, offers a highly unconventional wedding service – newlyweds can rent a cute, fluffy alpaca from a nearby zoo to act as a witness to their wedding.

No one really knows when the hotel started using alpacas to attract customers, or how they came up with the unique idea, but judging from the number of photos happy newlyweds have been posting on Japanese social media lately, it’s definitely becoming popular. It’s not that alpacas are good luck charms, nor are they part of some obscure Japanese ritual, they’re just cute and a sure way to make a wedding memorable.

The alpacas are escorted down the aisle by a professional trainer who makes sure they are on their best behavior during the wedding ceremony. Still, somethings not even the most experienced trainers can prevent, so if you smell something funny during the proceedings, just ignore it. Usually they just stand there as the newlyweds exchange vows and declare their love for each other, kind of like human witnesses do.

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Luxury travel company Oliver’s Travels is offering its wealthy clients an innovative wedding service – a sky clean up. For a hefty fee of over $150,000, they actually offer to pop clouds and induce rain up to a week before their wedding, in order to ensure clear blue skies on the day of the ceremony.

It might sound ridiculous, but cloud seeding is actually a legit scientific technique. It involves the firing of rockets filled with silver iodide crystals into rain clouds from a light aircraft, or from the ground. The icy silver particles freeze the water droplets in the clouds so that they continue to grow in size and eventually fall out of the cloud as snow, turning into rain just before hitting the ground.

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While most women turn to ice cream and tissues for the much needed post-breakup comforting, this Chinese woman chose a different way to deal with heartbreak – she went and got herself a fake wedding with the man who dumped her!

The woman, who calls herself ‘Doudou’, is a student in Wenzhou city in eastern China’s Zhejiang Province. She told reporters that she’d been swept off her feet by a businessman, 11 years her senior, whom she’d met at a restaurant. “I found him charming and romantic and thought I had met my dream man, and that we would spend the rest of our lives together,” she said.

Unfortunately, Doudou’s dreams were shattered when she discovered that her knight-in-shining-armor was already married. This resulted in a furious row, but she had already fallen for him hard. “I was already in too deep, and didn’t know what to do,” she said.

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As an increasing number of Japanese women put their careers ahead of starting a family, the number of services that cater to single women is on the rise. One such service is the ‘Solo Wedding’ – a full wedding day experience during which a woman gets to be bride without actually getting hitched.

The absence of a groom at a wedding might sound abnormal, but the concept is surprisingly popular. Ever since Kyoto-based company Cerca Travels launched Solo Weddings in June, at least 10 single ladies have used the service. These are women who have dreamed of wearing a wedding dress all their lives, but never really had the chance to do it.

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Men can be real jerks sometimes, but this guy has got to be the worst of the lot – he actually faked his own death to get out of his wedding. 23-year-old Tucker Blandford, from Connecticut, didn’t have the guts to tell his fiancee the truth – that he wasn’t ready for marriage – so he just led her to believe that he had died. When bride-to-be Alex Lanchester found out the truth, she was livid and heartbroken.

“He has shattered my trust and I’m not sure I’ll ever be in a relationship again,” said Alex, also 23. “All I ever did was love him. I’m so sick of being messed around and I’m glad to be rid of him. Looking back, maybe I was naive. But I really loved him and never thought he would go to such extreme measures to dump me. I’ve cried until I felt numb but now I’m just really angry.”

So how exactly does one go about faking their own death? Well, conveniently for Tucker, Alex lives in another country, so he probably thought she wouldn’t be able to verify his story. He simply called her one day, a week before he was due to visit her, and pretended to be his own dad. “I picked up my phone and there was a man saying he was Tucker’s dad,” said Alex.

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More and more young couples in Hong Kong are turning to McDonald’s fast-food restaurants to fit their shoestring wedding budgets. With prices starting as low as $350 per wedding, the place is pretty much a steal – the deal includes the venue, decorations, audio equipment, food, gifts and invitations. The dream wedding has only one drawback – years later, couples will have to tell their kids that they got married at McDonald’s.

Surprisingly, not many couples are bothered by this. The demand for McDonald’s weddings is growing in Hong Kong – the wedding party program that was started in three locations in 2011, has now been extended to 15 branches. And, believe it or not, it’s not just about the money, there’s a sentimental value associated with getting hitched at McDonald’s.

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36-year-old Nadine Schweigert from Fargo, North Dakota, got married last month. She had a beautiful wedding. Nadine was dressed in a peacock blue satin dress and carried a bouquet of white roses. There was also a lovely white wedding cake covered in peacock blue fondant. So far, there seems to be nothing unusual about this affair; it’s not different from any other run-of-the-mill wedding in the US. But if you paid attention, you probably noticed there was no mention of a groom. It’s not that he didn’t show up, it’s just that there wasn’t a groom to begin with. Nadine just happened to marry herself.

Self-marriage can be a confusing concept to those who don’t know what it’s all about. Nadine isn’t alone, however, many others have done it before. It was even portrayed on the popular TV show Glee, where ‘Sue Sylvester’ ties the knot with herself. These ceremonies are considered secular and purely symbolic. New Age websites such as Encouraging Priestess even share ideas on how to perform self-marriage ceremonies. The idea behind these marriages is to help a person realize that they do not need anybody else to feel complete.

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A couple who found each other through an online social network called “Sweet on Geeks”, decided to geek out their wedding by having a computer program called Reverend Bit perform the ceremony.

Miguel Hanson and Diana Wesley had one of the most unusual yet appropriate weddings in human history. Hanson, a Houston web developer and IT consultant, got the crazy idea after they couldn’t find a friend to serve as minister at their wedding. He decided he was going to write his own minister, and while she acknowledged it would make them the target of nerd jokes, Diana agreed because it just fit who they are – geeks. They met on Sweet on Geeks, they both love science fiction and fantasy, and since the maid of honor was going to make the bride’s cake with Nerds candy as icing, they agreed to geek out their wedding completely.

The unique wedding ceremony took place on Saturday, in Hanson’s house, where the 30 or so guests were greeted by a mechanical, robotic voice. It was Reverend Bit, a program created by Miguel Hanson himself, who treated the audience to a short story about how the couple met, before beginning the actual ceremony. His square animated face appeared on one side of the 30 inch monitor, while the other side showed the text of what he was saying. His voice came over a sound system.

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Kelly Clinton and Lee Wiggets have been together for 11 years, but financial priorities always prevented them from having the wedding they both dreamed of. Now, thanks to an unusual contest held by local radio station BRMB, they got their fairytale wedding, with a twist.

The two were voted winners of BRMB’s Naked Wedding competition, by 65% of voters, and won an all expenses paid wedding ceremony, as long as they showed up naked. It might not have been exactly as they pictured their big day, but you can’t let an opportunity like this just fly by. So on March 15, Kelly and Lee showed up at the Honiley Court Hotel, in Warwick, almost completely naked. The bride wore some skimpy underwear, a veil and a tiara, while the  groom used a top-hat to cover the family jewels.

The happy couple, who met when Lee was a door supervisor and Kelly was out with her friends, said they were a little nervous about showing up naked in front of their family and friends, but they’d recommend the experience to anyone who wants a special kind of wedding. Read More »

Over 1,000 people gathered in the Cambodian village of Sit Bow, to witness the wedding of two pythons, believed to bring prosperity and good fortune to the settlement.

Early 2008, I wrote a post about a Cambodian boy who had an unusually friendly relationship with a full grown python. Villagers believed he was the son of a dragon, and had supernatural powers. Fast forward to present day, Chamerun, the boy’s female pet snake is getting married to male Krong Pich, and the whole village has gathered for the big ceremony.

While most Camodians are Buddhists, they also believe in animism – a belief that spirits inhabit the bodies of animals – so whenever a bizarre animal makes an appearance, there are always speculations about it being housing some important spirit. Fortunetellers told the two snake owner their reptiles were soul mates blessed by the gods, and that they needed to be married and live together, otherwise the village will be struck by bad luck.

The marriage ceremony lasted two hours and was attended by people from all around the village area. Two Buddhist monks  blessed the snake couple, while villagers showered them with flowers and sang traditional wedding music. It must have been pretty creepy, for the pythons, of course.

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30-year-old Chen Wei-yih is set to defy Asian perception of single independent women as failures, by marrying herself, on November 6.

The young Taiwanese from Taipei has been dreaming about getting married ever since she was just a little girl. Now that she’s all grown up, she’s ready to put on the traditional white dress and veil and finally tie the knot…with herself. Like many other Asian women, Chen Wei-yih focused most of her attention on her career and hasn’t been able to find a suitable partner. While other girls go as far as stripping in public to find husbands, Chen decided it’s more important to first love herself before she loves others, and asked her own hand in marriage.

The wedding ceremony is set to take place on November 6, when Chen Wei-yih will put on her wedding dress and go out for a gourmet meal with family members and 30 of her closest friends. After the wedding, Chen and her beloved self will leave on a romantic honeymoon to Autralia.

Chen-Wei-yih courage to challenge social perception in such an original way has inspired many, and her Facebook wall has been assaulted with messages of encouragement and appreciation, sent mostly by young Asian women like herself.

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