A 24-year-old college student from University of Nevada at Las Vegas has announced she will be marrying Robert Pattinson… or, rather, Edward Cullen early next year. Well, not even Edward Cullen. Lauren Adkins will be marrying a cardboard cutout of Cullen. While it may sound like she is slightly crazy, Adkins is actually planning the wedding for her Master’s thesis.
“This work focuses on the female escapist fantasy in its most popular forms – primarily finding 'true love' – and the extent to which it seeps into our real lives,” Adkins explained, according to the Huffington Post.
She set up a fundraiser on Indiegogo to raise money for her wedding, and explained further:
“I've looked at this fantasy primarily through a pop cultural lens; that is I've used film and television's representations of the love story and female characters in general in an attempt to understand my own expectations of love,” she said. “Because of personal attachment to and experience with this fantasy or quest, which took a particularly strong hold of me when I discovered the intensely popular TwilightSaga, my thesis is going to touch on romantic expectation primarily through the main love interest, Edward Cullen.”
But for Adkins, the character of Cullen also ties into the city she lives in and that created even more of explanation into why she is writing what she is writing.
"Edward Cullen is really tied to the idea of Vegas for me," Adkins told the Las Vegas Review-Journal."The fantasy behind it can never be achieved. It's the ultimate facade."
Adkins is really going all out for the wedding. With the $1,235 she raised in her fundraiser she is planning an actual, real wedding.
According to the Huffington Post, the Adkins-Cullen wedding is planned for Jan. 26, 2013 and will include a cake and dress.
"It's a beautiful, escapist fantasy, and I'm living it," Adkins told Metro, according to the Huffington Post. "I've also got the invitations sorted, and even have a beach honeymoon planned for me and my vampire hubby. I'm going through all the steps a normal bride does. It's absolutely real."
No word on what the cardboard groom might wear.