The most important part of any wedding day is that ultimately it is about the two people who are getting married. Because of this, a lot of the smaller details in not only the dress itself but bridal accessories and the wedding headband often have a personal meaning behind them.
They do not have to be; after all, most people wear white wedding dresses because of tradition and not because they prefer it.
However, as more people want to make a wedding ceremony theirs and free themselves from many traditions, a lot of the personal interests of the bride and groom are often integrated into the ceremony.
This can include readings from favourite books in lieu of religious texts, walking down the aisle to someone’s favourite song or having a wedding cake emblazoned with logos and symbols that are particularly meaningful.
With the rise of geek chic and video game culture in other parts of society, here are some wonderful ways weddings have inspired video games and vice versa.
Tiara – Super Mario Odyssey
The plot of Super Mario Galaxy is about the eponymous moustachioed plumber travelling through the universe to stop a wedding between Princess Peach and the wicked groom Bowser.
However, whilst the bride-to-be’s Lochlady Dress gets most of the attention, in no small part because Mario can also wear it, the most beautiful part of Peach’s bridal ensemble is the living tiara Tiara, which mixes a timeless-if-cartoonish elegance with big cartoon eyes.
Meryl Silverburgh’s Tiara – Metal Gear Solid 4
The ending to the 2008 game Metal Gear Solid 4 is the longest on record according to Guinness World Records, with a feature-length conclusion that ties up all of the loose ends.
Ultimately, the best part of the ending was right at the start, when strong-willed mercenary Meryl Silverburgh gets married to attractive coward Johnny Sasaki on an airfield in a surprisingly touching ceremony.
Given this takes place on an abandoned airfield with less than a dozen mercenaries and lost souls as witnesses, Meryl’s dress is relatively conventional, complete with an ornate lattice tiara attached surprisingly high above her head, possibly due to a lack of a veil.
Interestingly, according to an interview with AJ Glasser for Kotaku, lead developer Hideo Kojima noted that the animation team did not know what a Western-style wedding dress looked like so an assistant had to rent one to model in front of the animators.
Yuna’s Winged Tiara – Final Fantasy X
The one problem with a video game wedding is that it is never as elegant nor as beautiful as the wedding dress is, and nowhere is this more the case than in the beautiful Final Fantasy X.
As part of a strange and ultimately unsuccessful plan to send the villainous Seymour to the Farplane, the summoner Yuna goes through a wedding ceremony on a flying airship, complete with a winged dress replete with feathers, back accessories and an elegant tiara.
Despite being a relatively small part of a very long game, the wedding sequence is one of the most famous of the entire series, and the subtle but beautiful tiara adorning the summoner’s head as her veil is thrown off by the wind is visually arresting.