Animal Crossing: New Horizons players are celebrating birthdays and weddings in-game

(Image credit: Nintendo via Reddit u/ashmush)

Animal Crossing: New Horizons players are holding celebrations and recreating weddings in-game to make up for canceled plans as a result of the coronavirus. 

Since the game launched on March 20, players have been flooding Twitter and Reddit with posts of their in-game celebrations, with players throwing surprise birthday parties for friends and even creating whole wedding ceremonies that they can't attend or throw at the moment. 

On Reddit, u/ashmush posted a picture of the wedding ceremony their fiancé surprised them with after they had to cancel their plans. "My fiancé planned it out with our best friends," ashmush writes in the comment below, "I'm graduating from med school and not getting a graduation and our wedding was cancelled. I was feeling pretty down about missing out on my milestones. This made me so happy, I don't even have the words to describe how much it meant to me." 

My fiance and I had to cancel our upcoming wedding due to Covid-19, so our best friends gave us a surprise animal crossing wedding instead from r/AnimalCrossing

For many who are missing on milestone moments, the delightful virtual island makes for the perfect set-up to throw all kinds of shindigs. On Twitter, Jackie Lee posted a video of a surprise birthday party complete with an adorable table decorated with presents and happy birthday written across the ground. The celebrations once again demonstrate just how creative the Animal Crossing community is, and it just goes to show the many ways you can use New Horizons' tools to throw a truly amazing party. 

For many who had trips and holidays booked have also had to cancel their plans, which has also led to some players trying to recreate the holiday they weren't able to have. In a Reddit post by u/jjjjjoseph, they sent their Animal Crossing villager on their canceled trip to Tokyo by trying to recreate it in-game. 

My trip to Tokyo got cancelled, but my villager made it somehow from r/AnimalCrossing

Animal Crossing: New Horizons isn't the only game that's been enabling people to hold celebrations. Just recently Japanese students held their own graduation ceremony in Minecraft. Tom Nook's deserted island getaway released at a time when people around the world needed it most, and it's heartening to see the many creative ways it's bringing people together to celebrate special occasions when they can't do so in reality. 

If you're just about to arrive on your very little island, here are all the Animal Crossing: New Horizons tips you need to get started. 

Heather Wald
Senior staff writer

I started out writing for the games section of a student-run website as an undergrad, and continued to write about games in my free time during retail and temp jobs for a number of years. Eventually, I earned an MA in magazine journalism at Cardiff University, and soon after got my first official role in the industry as a content editor for Stuff magazine. After writing about all things tech and games-related, I then did a brief stint as a freelancer before I landed my role as a staff writer here at GamesRadar+. Now I get to write features, previews, and reviews, and when I'm not doing that, you can usually find me lost in any one of the Dragon Age or Mass Effect games, tucking into another delightful indie, or drinking far too much tea for my own good. 

Read more
Three girls face the camera with big smiles in Animal Crossing New Horizons
15 Games like Animal Crossing that are so wholesome it hurts
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Animal Crossing's "obscure references" were all "localized out completely" before its debut in the West, as Nintendo felt it needed to "change everything"
Anime Life Sim
After unsuccessfully attempting to launch a Monster Hunter clone, this controversial dev is now supposedly releasing an Animal Crossing-like game on PS5
A screenshot of the announcement trailer for Hello Kitty island Adventure, with all the characters waving
Hello Kitty Island Adventure is the latest example of how cozy games are secretly pretty dark at their core
Games like Stardew Valley
Games like Harvest Moon we think you should play
Kemuri
Horror game legend Ikumi Nakamura swaps her love of gore for true romance by helping dev use custom sidequest as real-life proposal: "Moments like this remind me how lucky I am"
Latest in Animal Crossing
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Animal Crossing's "obscure references" were all "localized out completely" before its debut in the West, as Nintendo felt it needed to "change everything"
Anime Life Sim
After unsuccessfully attempting to launch a Monster Hunter clone, this controversial dev is now supposedly releasing an Animal Crossing-like game on PS5
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp trailer screenshto showing a chibi-style female character with bobbed brown hair, a yellow flower atop her head, and a chef-like top, smiling with her arms out
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp's new paid version has finally arrived and is microtransaction-free, but fans already miss the old app
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp trailer screenshto showing a chibi-style female character with bobbed brown hair, a yellow flower atop her head, and a chef-like top, smiling with her arms out
As the free-to-play Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp prepares to go offline, Nintendo reveals more on the paid replacement - including its $20 price tag
Galactic Getaway
This multiplayer life sim is like Animal Crossing in outer space with Mario Party minigames, and it's just what I needed this Steam Next Fest
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp trailer screenshto showing a chibi-style female character with bobbed brown hair, a yellow flower atop her head, and a chef-like top, smiling with her arms out
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp players blast "greedy" Nintendo as new items roll out despite the game's imminent shutdown
Latest in News
A screenshot from MindsEye showing a character leaning out of a car, shooting another car with a gun.
GTA veteran says the games industry needs to "get smarter" about what people actually want: "There are so many games, and I think we're starting to feel the effects"
Posing with a rifle in the Fallout 76 Ghoul update
Fallout 76's art director "had to fight really hard" so Bethesda would make the MMO's map bigger than Skyrim's
Minecraft movie image of Jack Black as steve
Don't expect Minecraft to go free-to-play anytime soon, as Mojang says "It doesn't really work with the way we built it"
Yasuke looking over the water to a shrine during sunset in Assassin's Creed Shadows
Assassin's Creed Shadows has an entire island stuffed with adorable kittens you need to check out, and it's based on an actual Japanese cat paradise
phase zero key art showing zombies in a hallway
Former Witcher 3 and Dying Light devs reveal their Resident Evil homage, complete with PS1-style fixed cameras
Shadow of Mordor's Nemesis System was only created because WB Games wanted something to combat Batman Arkham Asylum's second-hand sales, exec says