It occurs to me that a Big Life Event happened during the period when I was doing creative writing on this blog, and thus those of you who only keep tabs on what I'm up to through this site won't be aware of it. So now seems like as good a time as any to share the happy news that Andie and I got engaged, and we're getting married in June of this year.

You probably want an engagement story, don't you? Well, all right, then. Settle down and I'll tell you one.

As regular readers will know, Andie and I are both regular players of the massively multiplayer online RPG Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. In a recent patch, developer Square Enix added the facility to perform a "Ceremony of Eternal Bonding" with a partner in the game — getting married, in other words. Any character can marry any other character, no matter their gender or race, making it a wonderfully inclusive part of a game that was already extremely inclusive to begin with. I mention this latter fact because Andie and I both play female characters: mine is Amarysse the Hyur Midlander (essentially a relatively normal-looking — albeit "Final Fantasy attractive" — human-type female), while Andie's is W'khebica the Miqo'te (a race of people with cat ears and tails).

As soon as the Eternal Bond stuff launched, Andie and I knew that we wanted to indulge in it. It's ultimately a silly thing that doesn't have a huge amount of relevance to the game as a whole — your main benefits for getting married are that you get a ring that allows you to teleport to your spouse's side once every 30 minutes and, depending on which package you signed up for, some of which cost real money, a selection of goodies including wedding attire, a two-seater chocobo mount and a minion to give to all your guests when they attend your ceremony — but we still wanted to do it. I also think it's quite a nice way to acknowledge a real-world relationship in the game itself — though, of course, there are plenty of people who are getting married just for fun.

Anyway. Andie and I got up early on Boxing Day to book our ceremony. Yes, you actually have to book; ceremonies occur at specific times on specific dates, so we had to get in early in order to get a practical slot. Given that we play alongside a lot of Americans, we wanted to book it for an America-friendly time that was also not in the middle of the night for us, so we eventually settled on Saturday January 3 in the evening our time, since you have to book at least a week in advance.

Now, since we'd been talking about getting in-game married ever since the possibility was launched, I'd been pondering secret plans in the run-up to this, and decided that yes, I wanted to put those plans into motion. I had not-particularly-subtly hinted to Andie that I might be interested in buying her a shiny ring, and invited her to indicate a selection of acceptable choices that would not cause me to be thrown out on the street or anything. I did some research, shopped around and eventually settled on one that she'd indicated she particularly liked. I finished work early on New Year's Eve and snuck into town to see if they had one in stock. They did, but not in the right size; I bought it anyway, as it was more that I wanted to have it as a symbol to go with the proposal than something I could put on her finger right away. (It transpired that she put it on anyway, got it stuck and we eventually had to go to A&E to get the damn thing off again! We now have one in the correct size.)

That was that; the plan was in motion, and there wasn't really any turning back now. Well, sure, I could bottle it and save the ring for another occasion, but really, honestly, our in-game ceremony felt like an ideal time to do it.

I set to work determining how I was going to do it, including worrying rather more than I probably needed to about whether I should actually ask the question in the game's text chat function, or just disappear from my keyboard for a few moments and ask her in person. (When we're both playing, she's on her computer upstairs while I'm downstairs in the living room, so it's not as if I could have just turned to her and asked her.) Eventually, I wrote a speech that I felt expressed what I was feeling adequately (albeit perhaps overdramatically) and resolved to deliver it during the twenty-minute period of the in-game ceremony where you are invited to exchange your vows with your partner. Most players who are doing the wedding thing for fun skip over this part or just allow their friends to set off some fireworks, cheer, whoop and holler, but it seemed like the ideal moment to me. So that was what I decided to do.

The day came, and we both logged on to play as normal. While it was tempting to surprise everyone with what I was up to, I decided that it would be prudent to share my plans with at least a couple of people so that I could ensure we had a decent turnout to our ceremony, and that people knew they had to behave themselves appropriately. I sent a "whisper" (private message) to my friend Cyra (aka Phil; we actually met him in the real world a while back when he happened to be in London the same day we went down to see the Distant Worlds concert) and informed him of my plans. He squee'd a bit (well, in a sort of manly way) and then told me to leave it with him; he'd inform some of the other regulars in our Free Company (guild) and between them they'd make sure people were 1) at the ceremony and 2) behaving themselves.

The appointed hour came, and Andie and I rode to the Sanctum of the Twelve in the East Shroud. Our friends were already gathered outside, and one had been crafting multiple copies of a hat that Andie's character habitually wears, then handing them out to the guests, so we were confronted with a crowd of people all wearing flowery hats. Then it was time to go in; Andie and I were escorted to our separate rooms to get ready, while the guests were taken to their separate waiting room to wait for us both to indicate that we were ready. We both changed into our wedding dresses, rang our Eternity Bells to indicate that we were ready, and then the ceremony began.

Conveniently, Cyra/Phil recorded the whole thing. You can watch it on his Twitch page, because WordPress doesn't want to embed the video for some reason. 🙂

And, well, this happened.