Stardew Valley allows the player to propose to and marry many of the different villagers of Pelican Town. Marrying an NPC in Stardew Valley is a bit of an investment but it has a variety of benefits depending on your marital choice. They all take up a different location in your yard and do different activities. After marrying an NPC, they will create a unique room in your home, so their personal decor and style are also something you may want to consider. Regardless of who your spouse is, you will eventually have the opportunity to raise a baby with them as well! But perhaps the most alluring aspect of marriage is being gifted a Stardrop by your partner, which permanently increases your maximum energy. If you do decide that one of your children or your marital partner was a dud, you can always travel to the Witch’s Hut to deal with them in a morally questionable manner.
There are 6 potential husbands and 6 potential wives. They all have very different personalities, quirks, interior decorating choices, and hobbies. Additionally, as you increase your heart rating with an eligible romantic partner, you will see “heart events” that can be triggered by encountering them while at a certain heart rating. These events are also often season or time specific.
The 12 potential spouses in Stardew Valley.
How to Get Married
Unfortunately, there are a few requirements that need to be met before your chosen NPC will agree to marry you. Your relationship needs to reach 10 hearts with the specified villager, your farmhouse needs to be upgraded at least once, and you need to have access to the Tide Pools of the Beach. This area can be accessed by paying 300 wood at this location in order to construct a bridge. This area can also be accessed by purchasing the second community upgrade from Robin, which provides a new shortcut. While these shortcuts are very helpful, the first and second community upgrades have a total cost of 800,000 gold and 950 wood. The first farmhouse upgrade costs 450 wood and 10,000 gold, which enables marriage. In order to have a child with your romantic partner, your farmhouse will need to be upgraded again for 50,000 gold and 150 hardwood.
Each villager has certain likes and dislikes, and giving them things they really like is the fastest way to bring your relationship “heart” meter to 8. Once your romantic interest has 8 hearts, you can give them a bouquet in order to bring it to 10. This is the only way to bring your relationship meter above 8 hearts with any villager. Upon reaching 10 hearts, their relationship with you in the social tab will switch to either “Boyfriend” or “Girlfriend”. Pierre sells bouquets at Pierre’s General Store for 200 gold, and these will become available after you reach 8 hearts with your romantic interest. Of course, this will not happen if your romantic “interest” is not actually a potential candidate for marriage, even with 8 hearts. A bouquet can be given to multiple villagers, but it will have no effect unless they have 8 hearts and are a potential romantic interest. There will be no penalty for giving a bouquet to a villager that is not romantically interested but of course no gain either.
After you reach 10 on the heart meter you will be sent a letter from Mayor Lewis explaining how to become engaged. The Old Mariner can be found at the previously mentioned Tide Pools on rainy days, and he sells the Mariner’s Pendant which is required for engagement. This costs 5,000 gold. During the Winter, he can be found if you place a Rain Totem. In order to be able to purchase the Mariner’s Pendant you need to have a 10 on the heart meter of a potential partner, an upgraded farmhouse, and you must be unmarried.
The Old Mariner’s response when interacting with him without meeting all of the proposal requirements.
After giving your 10-heart boyfriend/girlfriend the Mariner’s Pendant, you will begin the marriage process. The wedding takes place in the morning 3 days after the proposal and it will be indicated by a heart symbol where the weather symbol normally is on the HUD. There must be no town event for the wedding to commence, and if there is a town event, it will be postponed to the soonest day without a town event. Regardless of what the weather report may have said on your farmhouse TV, the weather will always be sunny on your wedding day. While the heart meter does grow to a potential of 14 hearts, it is lowered by 20 points per day for every day you do not interact with your spouse. However, there are 250 points in a single heart, so this marital resentment takes many days to develop, making it pretty easy to keep your spouse happy. There is no longer a limit on total gifts per week after you become married, but there is still a limit of 1 gift per day.
The wedding, which takes place in the center of Pelican Town.
Post-Wedding Life
There are many different chores that your romantic partner will do for you after becoming married. They will have their max heart meter increased from 10 to 14, and keeping it near 14 will cause them to do chores for you more often. These chores include: Fixing broken fences, giving gifts, giving the pet water, watering the crops, and feeding the animals. They will also occasionally change around the wallpaper/flooring or add a piece of furniture. The best gift your spouse will give you is a Stardrop, which is obtained at 12.5 hearts. This can only happen once per save file, or once per player in Multiplayer. The Stardrop is one of the rarest and most valuable consumable items in Stardew Valley, which gives the player 34 additional maximum energy upon use. The initial energy value is 270, and with all 7 potential Stardrops found in-game, your total energy value can reach as high as 508 energy (270 + 7 * 34).
The room that your spouse constructs will sit to the right of your bedroom. Each room is decorated pretty differently, so consider carefully which partner you choose. There is also an outside area behind your farmhouse reserved for your spouse, which they will sometimes spend time at. This is a reflection of their personality and interests.
Each spouse has a different personal room interior.
Abigail will practice the flute, Alex will lift his weights, and Elliot, Harvey, and Penny all read books while sitting surrounded by potted plants. Emily meditates while surrounded by a variety of colorful crystals and Haley stands and takes pictures of herself between two potted palm trees, likely to provide the illusion of a beach. Leah carves a wooden sculpture, Maru fiddles with a box that resembles some type of computer, Sam brings a half-pipe which he then does sick skateboard tricks on, and Sebastian works on his bike. Shane has the most remarkable yard addition, which is a chicken hutch for his pet chicken, Charlie.
The yard decorations placed by your spouse vary greatly depending on your partner as well.
Raising Children
With the second farmhouse obtained for 50,000 gold and 150 hardwood, there is a chance after going to sleep that your spouse will ask you if you want to have/adopt children. The responses available are “Yes” or “Not now,” and same-sex couples will adopt while opposite-sex couples will have their own children. If you say yes you will have a baby 14 days later, with biological birth and adoption going about basically identically. The gender of your child is randomized and your second child will have the opposite gender of the first. You can have a maximum of two children and you cannot have a second child until the firstborn is a toddler.
There are four stages of child development, and they become a toddler (stage 4) after 56 days. During the first 14 days, your child is an infant that just sleeps. When interacting with them it just says they are sleeping. Unfortunately, interacting with a sleeping baby does not improve your relationship with them. For the next 14 days, the baby stands up in their crib when they are awake. When interacting with them, you are able to toss them up into the air. Interacting with them improves your relationship with them by 20 points, once per day. The interaction rules remain the same from stages two to four. Interacting with them is the only way to improve your relationship with them, as you cannot give children gifts.
The four stages of child development in Stardew Valley.
The third stage of development lasts 28 days and is when they begin leaving the crib. They crawl around the house and play with toys. At night they are automatically returned to the crib. During the fourth and final stage of child development, they are toddlers that run around the house. During this stage, they will sleep in the bed of the nursery instead of the crib. Now that your child is a toddler, your spouse will bring them take to town events and walk around with them. With the crib now open, you can now begin the child-raising process once again. Of course, the odds of your partner asking that question any given night is very low (only about 5%).
Witch’s Hut
If for whatever reason you have decided you do not want your child anymore, there is one option for you. Inside the Witch’s Hut sits the Dark Shrine of Selfishness. If you offer this shrine a Prismatic Shard you will have the option to turn your child into a dove. If this is done, they will fly away, with no option to bring them back to their human form. If they are wearing a hat when this is done, the hat will be at the Lost and Found the following day. Once you do this, you will be a bit cursed. There is a chance the doves will fly past you, with the odds increasing depending on the number of children you have sacrificed. There is a chance of a creepy phone call that is presumably from your dead/dove children.
Interior of the Witch’s Hut, which holds both the Dark Shrine of Selfishness (left) and the Dark Shrine of Memory (center).
Watching TV on the 26th of Fall and selecting the “???” option will show an Ancient Doll on the screen, which will then fly out of the TV. After this horrifying event, you can find this possessed Ancient Doll in front of the Dark Shrine of Selfishness back at the Witch’s Hut. It will fly around and attack you, and when killed, will turn into a large crow and fly away. Leaving the Witch’s Hut and coming back inside will spawn this monster once again, which can be slain once again. If you have sacrificed your child and you are on the Four Corners farm, an Ancient Doll can be found while fishing on your land.
The Ancient Doll appearing on TV.
Inside the previously mentioned Witch’s Hut also sits the Dark Shrine of Memory. After offering it 30,000 gold, memories will be wiped from all ex-wives and ex-husbands. This will give you the option to interact with them again and even potentially become married again. The final shrine in Witch’s Hut is the Dark Shrine of Night Terrors, which toggles on or off the spawning of monsters at the farm. In order to enter the Witch’s Hut, you must finish the Dark Talisman quest. This is a fairly late-game quest, as it comes after completing all of the Joja Mart or Community Center tasks. But if you generate enough gold through hard labor on the farm and ruthless budgeting, you can finish all of these tasks easily within your first 1-2 years. Of course, relying purely on gold means you must go the corporate route of Joja Mart and betray the local community.
The alternative route to turning in all of the Community Center bundles is a 140,000 gold stepping stone into the Witch’s Hut.
Divorce
If you are unhappy with your partner, you can divorce them by visiting the Mayor’s Manor and filing for divorce. There is a 50,000 gold fee and divorce can be canceled until the day ends. If this is not stopped, your home will return to its previous state and your relationship with your ex-spouse will return to 0 hearts. Items left in their room will be returned, and any interactions with them will be limited to them talking about why your marriage failed.
Stardew Valley has a wide range of potential relationship interactions, including marriage, divorce, raising children, and turning them into doves. Even if you dislike every single potential romantic partner, consider a partner for all the benefits! Gaining a Stardrop and permanently improving maximum energy is a very convincing argument for even the most anti-social farmer. Occasionally receiving a gift or help with chores is helpful as well. However, the largest factor in your decision should ultimately be your partner’s interior decorating choices. With their room stuck alongside your bedroom, it is a potential eyesore. Their outdoor space is also unavoidable and not that easy to hide, so keep this in mind as well!
