1787: Eternal Bond

I’m pleased to report that today went somewhat better than yesterday. I feel like I’m still shaking off the aftereffects of the stomach bug I’ve had, but things aren’t quite as bad as they have been, which is nice. I also bought some new headphones (which I promptly forgot to take with me today) and got a new ID card lanyard, which was also nice.

Andie and I got engaged, too.

Hah! That made you look twice, huh. We didn’t really. Well, we sort of did, though not in the traditional sense. Instead, taking full advantage of the new Final Fantasy XIV patch which came out today, we both signed up for the new Eternal Bond ceremony: Eorzea’s take on marriage, with no restrictions on the genders or races of the two people involved. We didn’t actually get “married” in-game today; doing so is more than a simple throwaway thing to do when you feel like it. Instead, it involves a number of different steps, none of which are difficult, but which do demand you demonstrate a certain amount of willingness to help each other out as a couple, which is nice.

First up you have to acquire “Promise Wristlets” by signing up for the ceremony on the game’s website. There are three tiers of ceremony, ranging from the free one (where there’s only limited customisation of the ceremony available) to Platinum tier (where you have the most possible customisation options, a prettier dress and free gifts to offer your guests). Gold and Platinum weddings cost real money, though not very much, and because Andie and I are both idiots, we went for the Platinum ceremony.

After making our intentions clear and being issued with our respective pretty dresses, we were informed that we’d need to prepare our own wedding rings. We worked together to acquire the materials necessary to do so — thankfully the ring itself isn’t difficult to create — and soon enough we were ready to begin our preparations in earnest.

What followed was an enjoyable if straightforward “pilgrimage” quest where we had to visit all the main regions of Eorzea together, find the symbols of the Twelve — the gods of the lands — and pray before them. In doing so, we blessed our respective wedding rings with divine power, ready for the ceremony. We then had the opportunity to talk over what kind of ceremony we wanted and given the ability to customise the chapel to our liking. We had to actually agree on what we wanted, too, otherwise when the big day comes the officials simply pick one of your options and run with it.

That’s all we could do for now; bookings for the actual ceremony — yes, you have to actually book — open on Friday, so we’re going to have to get in when we can and find a suitable time and place to get virtually hitched and invite our virtual friends to come and watch and cheer us on. I’m actually very curious to see how the whole thing goes down; I know a number of massively multiplayer online games in the past have had the ability to get married in them, but I’ve never been in a position where I was actually able to get married to someone, whether “seriously” as Andie and I are doing so, or just to see how it worked with a friend. (I’m a bit of a traditionalist, though; while a virtual marriage isn’t legally binding, of course, I do actually kind of believe it has a certain degree of meaning, and as such I’m glad to be able to do it with Andie; it wouldn’t have felt right even just “trying it out” with anyone else if, say, she wasn’t playing.)

I tell you what, though, even with all the charging past hordes of kobolds on chocoboback on the way to find another pilgrimage stone, getting virtually married is nowhere near as stressful as arranging the real thing!