Stru! These four men married their tech devices
Image: 123rf/lsantilli
A man who was unlucky in love decided to stop looking for an emotional connection in humans and instead turned to a virtual character.
Akihiko Kondo, a 35-year old Japanese man, spent nearly $18,000 to tie-the-knot with virtual singing sensation, Hatsune Miku.
Miku is a 16-year-old character with big eyes and pigtails.
Kondo's relatives gave the wedding a miss, seeing as he was marrying a hologram.
For the big day, Miku was presented to 40 guests in the form of a doll resembling the character.
Kondo isn't the only man who's gotten lucky with technology.
A robotic relationship
In 2017, a Chinese man said 'I do' to a robot he created himself.
Zheng Jiajia, who works as an artificial intelligence engineer, built a robot and named it Yingying.
When Jiajia's family pressured him into marriage, he decided to marry Yingying in a traditional Chinese wedding ceremony.
The bride weighs 30kg and must be carried around, but Jiajia has plans to upgrade his wife so she can walk and do household chores.
How's about a laptop for a partner?
According to The Washington Times, in July 2017, Chris Sevier appeared before a US court to demand that his marriage to a laptop be legally recognised.
Sevier also sued a bakery which refused to bake a cake for the special occasion.
He argued that if same-sex marriages were recognised, then so too should his nuptials to his computer bride.
Sevier is serial groom with a weakness for machines. Just three years earlier, he married a computer loaded with pornography.
"I began preferring sex with my computer over sex with real women," he told the court.
Smartphones for the long-haul romance?
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Las Vegas is known for quick, low-cost weddings. Some chapels even host drive-thru weddings for brides and grooms on-the-go.
But two years ago when Aaron Chervenak went to Las Vegas, he wanted something a little different. Chervenak wanted to profess his undying love to his smartphone.
"We connect with our phones on so many emotional levels," he said.
"We look to it for solace, to calm us down, to put us to sleep, to ease our minds and to me, that's what a relationship is about."
Though these marriages are not recognised by law, the grooms seem to take the unions with their hi-tech wives seriously enough to spend a pretty sum on bizarre wedding ceremonies.