Animal Crossing is a social simulation video game, developed by Nintendo and first released in 2001. It enjoyed a recent re-release in March of 2020, which allowed players to hang out with their friends in-game. It exploded in popularity thanks to the widespread social distancing regulations brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Animal Crossing isn’t just fun and games, it has been playing a surprising part in facilitating weddings despite the lockdown. Read on to discover how a handheld video game is helping real couples to get married during this time.
Difficult Circumstances
These are trying times for everybody. For couples who have been planning their dream wedding for a long time, it’s especially difficult. Nothing is more disappointing than having to give up after months and months of careful planning, after all. Moreover, it’s particularly tough when the reason you have to give it up is completely out of your control.
The rapid spread of coronavirus across the world has led to plans of all varieties being abandoned, rescheduled, or rethought completely. Countless weddings have been cancelled, as well as honeymoons, bridal showers and bachelor/bachelorette parties. But if you’re a gaming enthusiast, all is not lost.
Tying the Virtual Knot
Although it may not have the same appeal as a real-life wedding, there have been dozens of couples who’ve refused to let the pandemic get the better of them. Surprising as it may sound, Animal Crossing is playing a major part in allowing love to blossom the way it should’ve done in the first place. Even if that does happen to be in a virtual world with virtual characters.
The trend was perhaps kicked off by Reddit user u/Ashmush, who took to the popular social media site to explain how he came to get married online. The wedding he’d had planned with his fiancé was cancelled on account of COVID-19. However, that wasn’t all he had to give up: he was also unable to take part in his own graduation from med school.
A Celebration With a Difference
When his friends proposed throwing him a wedding on Animal Crossing with everybody in attendance, it seemed like the perfect solution. What just a few years ago would’ve been impossible was now feasible. It is also actually an excellent way around the challenging social conditions we’re dealing with at the moment.
An Animal Crossing wedding won’t carry any legal weight, but it’s more about the sentiment involved. U/Ashmush’s virtual wedding inspired a whole series of other loved-up couples to say the magic words through the video game. This idea has also inspired tons of spin-offs. These include birthday parties, celebrations for achievements at work, and even baby showers.
Times are hard right now, but it’s not all doom and gloom — and where there’s a will, there’s a way. The developers of Animal Crossing couldn’t have ever predicted it would come to play such a major part in the love lives of couples all over the world. With the sudden trend in virtual weddings, it seems like a touching way to contribute to keeping the spirit of love and passion alive, pandemic or no pandemic.
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