It was lovely, quick and simple, the kind of wedding ushered through multiple times daily in a Strip chapel with a stunning bride in white lace moving through manufactured fog to take her place at the altar.

With her gold hair pinned back and her lipstick as red and perfect as the bouquet of roses in her hands, she emerged to a synthesized version of “Here Comes the Bride,” a moment so convincingly over-the-top in a room filled with friends (decked out for the occasion) that when the groom failed to speak his vows, it was actually ... awkward.

But in the name of performance art, Lauren Adkins’ marriage to the cardboard cutout of Twilight character Edward Cullen was a success—a Vegas themed, Hollywood romance-inspired MFA project of art imitating (and commenting on) life, a carefully crafted illusion of happily ever after with a nonexistent someone.

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