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.

Niitzuma LovelyxCation is set to launch on April 28th, but Hibiki Works, the maker of the video game, has already announced that the special wedding ceremonies will be held on June 30th, at an undisclosed location in Tokyo. The company is apparently confident that it will find plenty of grooms for its three anime characters, and has released a few details about the proceedings way ahead of time.

The male players/grooms, who will all have to put on a tuxedo for the big event, will put on a virtual reality headset as they make their way to the altar of the yet-to-be-revealed chapel, where their virtual fiancee will be waiting for them. There, they will be able to exchange vows, declare their love for each other and say the phrase “I do”.

Hibiki Works has made it clear that this will not be just a mass wedding, but that every groom will experience getting married in a private event, surrounded by family and friends, or just other fellow “otaku” who share their passion for dating simulation video games.

And in just in case you’re asking yourself “who on Earth would want to do something like this?”, I’ll have you know that this sort of anime-style dating simulators are very big in Japan. Real-life dating is becoming less popular in Japan, with data showing that 1 in 3 Japanese men remain single for life, so many people actually turn to technology to fill the romantic void in their life.

Besides, Japan is no stranger to bizarre weddings. Three years ago, a reality TV show launched a girl band whose members fans could actually marry.

via RocketNews24