It's 2019: chihuahuas are being stolen from garden's by seagulls, America is run by a man who used to host the Apprentice and Amanda Knox is having an intergalactic themed wedding which we haven't been able to stop thinking about for...well...a few reasons. Not least of all for the 'extravagant alien food'.
Knox - who was convicted and cleared of murdering her roommate Meredith Kercher in Italy in 2007 - has now denied claims that she was planning to crowdfund the wedding via a website with various donation options, stating 'I did not put it out there expecting to get a dime from anyone'.
On this point there's been some confusion, due to the fact that Knox wrote on their wedding website with fiancé Chris Robinson that as the couple had 'no financial backing' they were hoping to raise $10,000 for the wedding and directs guests to a wedding registry where they can contribute to 'specific costs, such as the band or booze (crucial)' in return for a signed copy of Knox and Robinson's book of love poems 'The Cardio Tesseract'.
Continuing, the couple wrote on the website 'Let’s face it, we don’t need any more stuff. What we do need is help putting on the best party ever for our family and friends!'
'I didn’t have my normal restraint in deciding whether or not to share something with the world,' Knox told ABC 'I suppose I should have anticipated the hateful response and the utterly misrepresented response that the media had.'
The real point of confusion here is the wedding website itself, which is quite spectacularly out-of-this-world. Beneath the title 'The Knox Robinson Coalescence' the couple kick off the sci-fi theme by writing 'No other pre-singularity union produced as much cerebral-empathic heat, or blazed as brightly through the early 21st century datasphere, as the joining of Amanda Marie Knox and Christopher Gerald Robinson.' It begins, continuing to state that Knox and Robinson were 'shocked into a matrimonial fervor by the future fact of their union. They learned their fate from a data-crystal shard of this Encyclopedia Galactica that rocketed back in time and landed in their backyard.'
In between the mentions of 'external chronometers set to Old Earth Solar' (clocks) and 'Telepathic imprints' however, there's evidence of a wedding as we know it. For example, the couple have requested a traditional RSVP (Relative Spacetime Volunteer Party) before January 2020, and the insignia of all millennial weddings (coalescence-based or not): the donation-based registry.
Perhaps it's the fact that we all like to think we're a bit more hip and trendy than our ancestors, perhaps it's the fact that honeymoons are increasingly overtaking the wedding itself as a thing (or that you're wondering how to fund your sci-fi themed wedding without bankrupting yourself over the spaceship) - but it seems that the donation-based registry is getting even more common than the traditional one these days.
However according Bridebrook wedding planning app, this isn't exactly anything new 'In many cultures - Japan, Spain, Greece, Brazil and more - guests pay for the wedding. In fact in many traditions, the 'money dance’ is eagerly anticipated by the guests who wait in line to dance with the bride and pin money to her dress or toss coins into her shoes.'
As for themed weddings like Knox's and Robinson's - are they getting more popular? Apparently yes, and actually the more creative aspects of a themed wedding could explain why couples often decide to take the non-traditional route of crowdfunding for the ceremony.
'Weddings have become the ultimate party for millennial couples, and a significant amount of budget is now spent on making the wedding ultra personal. The rise in social media is driving couples to be more creative, so all aspects of a wedding are now more considered.'
If you're on the fence about whether or not to donate to to Knox and Robinson's 100% not crowdfunded wedding, you should know that donating $2000 to their celebration will get you 'a special video from the future, reading you an excerpt from the Encyclopedia Galactica' - how could you possibly resist?