Recommendations: More Immersive Relationships
by beyondrecovery
If you've ever wished the relationships in Stardew were a little more immersive and offered a better variety of dating styles and options, this list is for you. Whether you’d like more control over your wedding ceremony, more (or fewer!) dating options, or your spouse to stop staring at furniture all day, these mods should help make your experience a little more immersive.
I can't guarantee compatibility with every single one of these (and for a few, compatibility simply won’t make sense) but I’ve played with most of these at the same time, so most of them should indeed be compatible.
Note: I’ve tried to categorize these as best as possible, but there is some overlap and some mods fit in more than one category.
Expanding the Dating Pool
There are many custom NPCs to choose from (many of which are marriageable some of which are roomateable) so I won’t list them all here. This section is just focused on vanilla NPCs who are not normally marriageable. Great for those seeking older marriage candidates.
Looking for Love allows you to marry single vanilla NPCs who are generally considered to be older in the game—Clint, Gus, Lewis, Linus, Marnie, Pam, Sandy, and Willy. Please note this mod does not let you marry the older adults who are already married in the game.
Romanceable Rasmodius lets you marry the Wizard.
Make Gunther Real turns Gunther into a full-fledged NPC you can befriend and marry.
Make Marlon Real turns Marlon into a full-fledged NPC you can befriend and marry.
Make Gil Real turns Gil into a full-fledged NPC you can befriend and marry.
Dating
Hugs and Kisses allows you to kiss your boyfriend or girlfriend before you get married (Bonus: you’ll also be able to hug your friends and NPCs who are related to each other will sometimes hug as well).
NPC Adventures lets you “recruit” NPCs to follow you when you’re at higher heart levels with them. Primarily made with combat in mind, you can also use this to have your partner follow you around town—allowing you to feel more like you’re going on dates and spending time with each other. Bonus: because you can take your NPC almost anywhere, you'll be able to propose to a character in a place they might not normally go (such as your farm or the Secrets Woods)
Sleepovers lets you spend the night with NPCs you’re friendly with, so you can snuggle up with your partner or even your best friend.
Dating Haley adds 13 dating events with Haley pre-marriage.
Shane Dinner Date for Mobile Phone adds a saloon date with Shane if you’re dating him.
Balloon Ride lets you invite the person you’re dating on a hot air balloon ride.
Romanced NPCs in CC Ceremony adds the character you’re romancing to the Community Center restoration ceremony. Works for vanilla and Stardew Valley Expanded (SVE) characters. Dating or married.
Romanced NPCs in CC Ceremony RSV Same as the above but for romanceable Ridgeside Village (RSV) characters!
Family Approval Highly configurable, this mod changes the conditions for dating vanilla characters so that you need to be friendly with the character's family and/or friends in order to date them.
Don't Date Relatives If you've ever found it a tad weird that you can date siblings and no one bats an eye, this mod is for you.
Wedding Ceremony
Customize Wedding Attire allows you to customize what wedding attire you wear, regardless of whether you use a male or female body farmer.
Elaho's Wedding Outfits Elaho's collection of wedding outfits for NPCs adds new, culturally-specific wedding attire for vanilla and some SVE characters!
Diverse Stardew Valley (DSV) In addition to adding seasonal outfits and more diversity to the game, DSV also has a feature where villagers will wear wedding guest attire to your wedding! It also has full compatibility with Elaho's wedding outfits for the characters (previews of wedding outfits can be seen at the site!)
Paisley's Bridal Boutique adds a bimonthly shop in town that sells formal options for wedding attire--many culturally specific.
Wedding Mod Update If you don't want to get married in the middle of the town square, this mod allows you to get married in the Secret Woods, Cindersap Forest, on the Beach, or in the Flower Dance area.
MIDI's Seasonal Wedding Retexture has seasonal options for the wedding archway, bouquet, and mermaid pendant, and can be used in conjunction with Wedding Mod Update.
Elliott Immersive Wedding adds engagement events and wedding ceremony options for Elliott.
Wedding Tweaks introduces a number of tweaks to the wedding ceremony—allowing you to adjust the number of days between proposal and your wedding, allowing witnesses to stand beside you and your spouse to support you, and more.
Lumisteria Villagers React To Marriage adds dialogue for right after your wedding ceremony, where the villagers congratulate you on your recent nuptials and wish you the best.
Marriage
Immersive Spouses adds a bit of life back into your spouse's schedule, so that they’ll spend less time in the farmhouse staring at furniture and more time doing the things that they used to love (and you presumably loved about them!)
Post Wedding Dates adds some short post-marriage dates.
Date Night also adds post-marriage dates, but includes some NPC-specific dates, as well as a greater variety of options to keep things feeling fresh. Includes an option for suggestive (but still SFW/PG friendly) endings.
Spouses React to Player “Death” adds events where spouses react to you “dying” in the mines.
Please Remember My Marriage adds dialogue where villagers will reference your from time to time, long after the ceremony has passed. Please note this is a small dialogue mod so it won’t stop some of the other mechanics such Clint suggesting you rest your head on his shoulder at the movies, Demetrius suggesting you might get in the way of Maru’s future even if you’re married to someone else, or the marriageable NPCs from constantly blushing in your presence and dropping hints about wanting to live on a farm.
Anniversary on Calendar Your wedding anniversary will now appear on the calendar.
Food on the Table allows your partner to eat food you left for them on the table. That’s right, feed your spouse!
Asters Bathroom Replaces Spouseroom Because sometimes you have a certain aesthetic and your spouse just doesn’t understand. Replace that spouse room with a beautiful bathroom instead (includes 14 options!)
Customizable Empty Spouse Room Maybe you don't hate your spouse’s room but wish it had more flexibility. This mod will allow you to empty out the room and provides furniture packs so that you can move that furniture around or incorporate it with other furniture.
Less Ugly Spouse Rooms From the creator of Less Ugly Town Interiors, comes Less Ugly Spouse Rooms, for when you want the spouse room to be a little less, well, ugly. Comes with windowed and non-windowed options, as well as options for varying degrees of empty.
Unique Jealousy Responses gives you more options when your spouse gets jealous over you giving a gift to another marriageable candidate.
Mermaid Pendant for Farmer If you use Diverse Stardew Valley or still have Seasonal Villager Outfits, you are probably familiar with the option to let your spouse wear the mermaid pendant you gave them once you’re married. This mod allows the farmer to also wear a mermaid pendant (you can imagine that they gave you one too). Full disclosure: I made this mod.
Winter Star Spouse lets you tweak the chances your spouse is your Winter Star gifter or giftee.
Relationships Beyond the Farmer
Bachelors and Bachelorettes Stay Friends If you find it a little strange that some of the NPCs stop hanging out with each other once they start becoming friendlier with the farmer then this mod is for you. Elliott will go back to hanging out with Leah at the saloon on Fridays, Abigail will still visit Sebastian, and Alex will still visit Haley to hang out at her house.
Life Cycle adds dating events for 9 pairings and marriage events for 4 of those, most of which involve the marriageable characters in the game. Allows you to pick and choose which pairings you want to install (so you can install the ones that do not involve characters you plan to romance).
Sambastian Romance adds dating events for Sam and Sebastian.
bolier's Sam and Sebastian Rival Heart Events adds dating events for Sam and Sebastian.
Rival Hearts Maru and Penny adds dating events for Maru and Penny, as well as a polyamorous option if you wish to date both of them as well.
Rival Hearts Alissa and Sam adds dating and marriage events for Sam and Alissa from RSV.
Rival Hearts Alex and Jeric adds dating and marriage events for Alex and Jeric from RSV.
Immersive Sandy In addition to giving Sandy a more dynamic schedule, more dialogue, and more events, this mod also has an option for Rival Hearts for Sandy and Emily. Full disclosure: I made this mod.
Platonic Route
Platonic Partners and Friendships (PPaF) adds a host of options to allow for more complex living arrangements that can be fully platonic, allosexual/aromantic, romantic/asexual, and more. Includes a platonic commitment ceremony. In addition, if enabled, this mod will stop romanceable NPCs from blushing all over the place as you become friendlier with them, allowing you to feel way less awkward about people you have no interest in romancing.
Friendship Bracelet Similar to Mermaid Pendant for Farmer, this mod was designed to be used in conjunction with PPaF, allowing the farmer to wear a friendship bracelet similar to the one given to your platonic life partner in PPaF.
No Cooties for when you just want to hug not kiss your live-in partner.
Polyamorous Options
Free Love adds options for more complex relationships, primarily allowing you to marry more than one NPC, marry NPCs while also having roommates, and more.
Custom Spouse Rooms is a framework allowing for greater spouse room customization, including adding more than one spouse room to the farmhouse, perfect for those using the Free Love mod.
Custom Spouse Patio Redux allows for greater flexibility with spouse patios, including setting up more than one patio if you have more than one spouse.
Multiple Spouse Dialogue allows your many spouses to say things to each other via speech bubbles.
Poly-Friendly Events adjusts the dialogue for the event where you’re dating all the vanilla candidates so that it’s less hostile.
Breaking Up
Friendly Divorce allows more complex divorce options—amicable breakups as well as less-than-amicable breakups where your ex foots the bill.
Divorce Dialogue Overhaul Because not every divorce ends the same way, this mod adds additional divorce dialogue so you no longer have to hear your ex say the same 1 or 2 things. Has options for friendly, flirty, and hostile circumstances.
Kaydwessie’s Extra Conversation Topics Villagers will comment on your divorce! (Bonus: they will also comment on the different luau outcomes, including if you tried to poison the governor).
Broken Hearts adds post-divorce events with friends and family members of the divorced party. For when you think divorce should actually have bigger consequences than they actually do.