The marriage system in Final Fantasy XIV is mainly for cosmetic and role playing purposes, although it can provide you with a fairly useful item (the Eternity Ring) which can’t be acquired elsewhere. This ring has the ability to teleport you right next to your wife or husband.
And for anyone who wants to replicate the ol’ ball and chain in Eorzea, it’s totally doable.
But really, is there any point in doing it?
Well that depends on your outlook. Do you want your character to be footloose and fancy free, or do you want to come home to the same catgirl/man every night?
Marriage in XIV is purely optional.
In fact, you can’t kick the process off without making a transaction on the online store.
I’d say that Eternal Bonding in XIV is more or less just something there for the sake of it.
It’s an extra bit of roleplaying fun, just there to make you smile (or cringe, depending on which ceremony you choose).
After following a brief questline where you prepare for the ceremony, you’ll be able to book it and hand out invites to friends in-game.
You don’t walk out of the ceremony empty handed though.
What Do I Get From The Ceremony Of Eternal Bonding?
There are three plans available to seekers of that vaunted marital bliss.
The Standard Plan is free, and gives you all the basics you need to get married.
This includes emotes, a wedding cake house furnishing, wedding clothes, and some basic ceremony options.
The Gold Plan will run you $20 (ten dollars per player), and offers everything in Standard plus the Ceremony Chocobo mount.
It also provides you with more options to tweak the ceremony itself – like adjusting lighting, carpets, and floral arrangements.
The Platinum Plan costs $20 per player (so $40 in total) and gives you everything in the previous plans (including the Chocobo mount) plus some extremely fancy clothes, and even more ceremony customization options.
Personally, that sounds like a little bit too much.
But some people love having all the choices possible.
Regardless of which plan you choose, you’ll still receive what is, in my opinion, the most useful item of this whole event.
Both players will receive an Eternity Ring, adorned with a grotesquely oversized stone.
This item can be equipped with some fairly basic stats, but if you use it, then it will teleport you to your wife/husband.
Right next to them, with no Aetheryte fees at all!
If you play with this other person regularly (which I imagine you would, if you cared enough to get married) this is a seriously useful perk.
But it does have limitations.
You can’t use it to access areas you haven’t already unlocked. So if you want to teleport to your lover in an area beyond A Realm Reborn, you’ll have to collect all the aether currents in that zone.
Basically, if you haven’t unlocked flying in a zone, you won’t be able to use the Eternity Ring to teleport there.
I Want To Get Married! How Do I Start?
It’s not complicated.
You’ve just got to head to this page on the website and begin your application after choosing one of the three plans.
You both have to pick the same plan, naturally – so you can’t mix and match.
Once you’ve settled on a plan and made the purchase, you’ll be sent an accessory in-game, and this will kick off the questline to get started.
You’ll have to go through a few steps to get there.
This is Final Fantasy, after all, and it wouldn’t be a feature without a metric ton of dialogue to wade through.
Once you’ve progressed enough, you’ll be able to book a time for the ceremony and plan it with the options available, then invite your friends.
Once all that’s done, it’s just a case of waiting for the big day.
Speaking from experience, the Ceremony of Eternal Bonding is super cheesy.
It’s not a classy affair at all.
I don’t know if it gets any more tasteful if you actually spend money on it, but just be prepared for some offensively saccharine scenes.
But how else are you ever going to be able to say you got married by Moogles, eh?
Can You Get Divorced Too?
I bet you’re fun at parties.
Yes, if things turn sour and the magic vanishes, you can have your not-so Eternal Bond annulled.
It can be done before the ceremony itself, or afterwards, at any time.
If it’s before the ceremony, you need your wristlet accessory.
If it’s afterwards, you’re going to need to bring that Eternity Ring.
Whatever you need, take it to the Sanctum of the Twelve in the East Shroud.
You can trade your accessory to the white-robed NPC there, which effectively annuls the bond and frees you up to marry someone else – or to head to Limsa Lominsa and live the single life.
Note that this process is only going to annul the marriage for you, though.
If the other player is having difficulty moving on, you can’t force them to relinquish their Eternity Ring.
They can still use it to teleport to you if they want.
And before you ask, no you can’t get a restraining order in Final Fantasy XIV. Although I’m sure if you could it’d have a fancier name.
