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Decentraland Just Hosted The UAE’s First Metaverse Wedding

After the online ceremony, the couple held a metaverse afterparty where they interacted with those who joined and partied for hours.

Published

4 years ago

May 19, 2022

David Morelo

decentraland just hosted the uae's first metaverse wedding

When two people from different parts of the world decide to get married, they face many difficult challenges, and one of them is figuring out the logistics of getting their family and friends to attend the ceremony.

After all, plane tickets are not cheap, and not everyone is healthy enough to travel thousands of miles. Florian Ughetto and Liz Nunez, the owners of Easy Wedding Georgia, have come up with a truly cutting-edge solution: they decided to get married in the metaverse.

More specifically, the couple walked down the aisle in their own private Decentraland plot on May 19, accompanied by close family, friends, and select guests.

“We dreamt of flying in our family and friends from France and Paraguay to Dubai to attend our wedding. However, Covid and legal hurdles played spoilsport. That is when we decided to take things to the metaverse,” said Florian Ughetto.

During the wedding, their avatars were dressed in a black and brown suit and a white dress, both of which were purchased on OpenSea, the world’s largest NFT marketplace. As they exchanged their vows and said, “I do,” their guests were enjoying the ceremony from the comfort of their own homes using laptops and smartphones.

After the online ceremony, the couple held a metaverse afterparty where they interacted with those who joined and partied for hours.

Also Read: A Beginner’s Guide To Getting Started With NFTs

The biggest challenge Florian Ughetto and Liz Nunez faced when organizing the metaverse wedding was ensuring that everyone had a stable connection to the internet. To be extra safe, they had recorded backups of their vows at hand, but, fortunately, they were not needed.

The fact that people are already getting married in the metaverse even though the new iteration of the internet is still in its infancy goes to show just how huge its potential is, and it will be interesting to see what its impact on our lives will be a few years from now.

Related Topics:Metaverse NFTs United Arab Emirates

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Microsoft Plans $10 Billion-Plus Gulf Expansion Despite Iran Conflict

Security is shaping Microsoft’s approach, from resilience work with governments to what it will say about how the money splits by country.

Published

4 days ago

September 24, 2026

Nour Nasir

Microsoft

Microsoft is planning more than $10 billion of investment across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait through 2030, Vice Chair and President Brad Smith told Reuters, calling the spending schedule aggressive. The Iranian conflict that began on February 28 has not persuaded the company to scale back.

“We’re sustaining all the investments we planned to make before this conflict started, and we are in fact adding to them,” Smith said. The $10 billion-plus total does not, however, show how large those additions are.

The investment, which Smith described as part of Microsoft’s continued infrastructure expansion, is aimed at cloud and AI infrastructure and at the company’s growing regional operations. Microsoft also intends to put more than $400 million into subsea and terrestrial connectivity across the Middle East by 2030.

The spending fits the region’s own ambitions too. Gulf governments have been investing heavily in AI infrastructure as part of a push to diversify their economies beyond oil and gas and turn themselves into global technology hubs. Major cloud and AI providers have been drawn in part by the land and relatively low-cost energy on offer.

Microsoft is widening its partnerships with regional AI companies, though not on identical terms. In 2024, it invested $1.5 billion in Abu Dhabi-based G42 for a minority stake, and Smith currently sits on G42’s board. Saudi Arabia’s Humain and Qatar’s Qai are working with Microsoft on selected priority areas, but Smith said the company does not plan to make capital investments in either.

Also Read: Egypt’s Mobile Wallets Are Booming, But Cash Still Has Power

The conflict has added another strand to Microsoft’s work in the region. Since it began, Smith said, the company has supported regional partners with digital resilience assessments, and it is now working with Gulf countries through a digital resilience initiative focused on preparedness and the protection of critical data.

So far, the company has given no country-by-country breakdown of the investment, citing security among other factors. So while the headline figure is public, how Microsoft divides the spending among the four countries is not.