Welcome to our wedding!

From the city of Harbin east to the Shanhai pass to the city of Zhengzhou which rests in the heart of the central plain, Zhi and Jingwen were born literally a thousand miles apart. Shortly after birth, Zhi moved to the capital with his parents, while Jingwen spent her entire childhood in her hometown. It was not until college did Jingwen move to Beijing, reducing the distance to only two subway stations. While it was likely that they crossed paths quite a few times near the McDonald’s amidst the hustle and bustle of Haidian Huangzhuang, they did not meet until close to graduation. Connected during a random search for grad school accommodations, they quickly fell in love. In 2019, Jingwen and Zhi farewelled their families and embarked on a grand journey to the other side of the earth. Together, they built their own home on the foreign terrain, weathering the storms through the time of uncertainty. Clashing but always with the hands joined, they merged into a symphony of love, which only grew richer with each passing day. The journey flourished into the pledge of engagement in 2021, by the tranquil waters of Arcadia. They now invite their cherished friends and families to the golden fall of New Jersey and join them for their wedding. Jingwen and Zhi want the day to not only be about themselves, but to be devoted to their parents, families, and friends. By celebrating their wedding, they want to celebrate the care in which they were raised, the help they received throughout the journey, the moments that shook their world and enriched their hearts, the bonds that held them through the stormy seas of life, and the foundations of their soul that are as firm and wide as the earth. Together, we celebrate a life full of love.

In 1981, at the age of 16, Zhenggui Xu set foot in the grand city of Beijing for the first time, ready to embrace the new chapter of his life. Born to a family of farmers in the suburbs of Mudanjiang, a remote city amidst the vast soil of the northeast, Zhenggui was the youngest son of the family. Long before Zhenggui was born, the Xu family immigrated from the Jiaodong Peninsula of Shandong, joining the crowd of “the crusher of Manchuria”. Expanded between hundreds of years and moved 20 million people, the black soil promised the people of the middle land, like the Xu family, a better life. At a young age, Zhenggui determined that he cannot be a farmer, after the third time of losing control of the loaded wheelbarrow and crashing into the ditch. He decided to let knowledge change his fate, which worked out with his perfect score in Gaokao. He chose a university in Beijing, partially due to the rumor that every college student in Beijing will be assigned a servant and a bodyguard. Despite some struggles with English, Zhenggui graduated and became one of China’s earliest computer engineers. He secured a tenure-track job in his home department and began considering getting married in the alien environment of the big city. Through friends, he met Miss Shihong Li, a daughter of a respectable working-class family from Harbin, a major city in north east China. Known as “the oldest son of the republic”, the city of Harbin hosts most of the heavy industries of the nation. The Pingfang district, where Shihong was born, was a headquarter of major factories, manufacturing engines for cars and planes. It was natural for every college graduate from Pingfang to come back and work in the factory, securing a middle class life as an educated manufacturer. This, however, was not what Shihong envisioned for her life. Against the will of her parents, Shihong went to college in Xuzhou, a city in the southern part of the nation, to study environmental science, a major that seemed ridiculous at the time. The reason Shihong chose this, reportedly, was that environmental science has nothing to do with car engines. With great fortune, Shihong was allocated to Beijing after finishing college, working as a technician for environmental analysis in a company specializing in foundationing. It is not certain whether it was the longing for a change in life that joined the young couple for marriage. According to Shihong, it might have been the magnetic voice of Zhenggui through the pay phone that distinguished him from all the other suitors, who were all reportedly “way better looking”. Getting married in 1994, the couple built their home in the single dormitory of Zhenggui’s university. While working tirelessly to establish themselves in Beijing, their son, Zhi Xu, was born in 1997 in Harbin, the same hospital where Shihong was born 29 years prior. By around 2000, the couple had gained a foothold, and Zhi was brought from Harbin to Beijing to benefit from top educational resources. Zhi spent his entire teenage years in the famous Haidian District, from kindergarten to college. Although he was unfortunately poor at math, his talent for writing, among others, earned him a place at a top university in Beijing, where he chose to study hard-core chemistry.

When Zhenggui secured a placement in Beijing, 18-year-old Li Yingchao from a village in Henan Province set foot in the same city for the first time, after enduring a ten-hour train ride standing in a crowded compartment all night. As the first person ever admitted to college in his village, Yingchao shared the same dream as Zhenggui—to change his destiny through education. Before Yingchao, the Li family had been peasants in Hongquangou Village, a poor and isolated mountainous area in central China, for hundreds of years. Growing up in a collectivized living and working environment amid the early 1970s’ People’s Commune Campaign, Yingchao experienced both hunger and the simple joys of countryside life. Yingchao’s mother, Xiurong, made a life-changing decision when she cut the food budget to buy a radio. With this radio, young Yingchao's mind could escape the confines of his village and explore the vast, colorful world beyond. Tragically, Xiurong died in a medical accident in 1979, leaving the family of six devastated. Yingchao became a silent and shy teenager, burying his immense sorrow in schoolwork. While his father expected him to help with farming after elementary school, Yingchao honored his visionary mother's dying wish by being admitted to the best high school in the county. With a little money raised from relatives and bags of mantou and pickled veggies prepared by his brother, Yingchao survived his boarding high school life despite severe malnutrition. Known as the student “whose hard work almost damaged his chair”, Yingchao earned a place at a college in Beijing. Unlike Zhenggui, however, Yingchao was called back home immediately after graduation to repay his family's support, sacrificing his chance to stay in the capital. Thus, at 22, Yingchao began his lifelong career teaching at a local college in Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan Province. One day in 1990, while Yingchao was working in his school office, a student named Jin Xiaocun knocked on his door. She was there to pick up her shirt, which had fallen onto Yingchao’s office balcony from her dorm above. At first sight, Yingchao fell in love. Xiaocun’s hometown, not far from Yingchao’s village, was better off and more polluted due to its coal mine resources. As the eldest daughter in a family of six, she was the perfect child every parent dreamed of. From the age of ten, she cooked for the family, helped with their small vending business, and excelled in school. Xiaocun grew into a superwoman in her 20s, embodying both traditional female virtues and the qualities of an independent modern woman who was good at football and mathematics. After some interactions, Xiaocun found Yingchao to be a good match. Yingchao was famous on campus not only for his fashionable hairstyle but also as the “walking encyclopedia.” Xiaocun was also lucky enough to be the only person who witnessed Yingchao's transient talent in cooking. When Zhenggui and Shihong were working hard around the clock, Yingchao proudly took his newly married wife to Beijing for their honeymoon. Xiaocun’s love, patience, and warmth revitalized Yingchao’s life. In 1996, their daughter Jingwen was born, and the family focused on caring for their only child rather than pursuing ambitious careers. Unlike Zhi Xu, who spent his childhood in advanced tutoring classes in Beijing's Haidian district, Jingwen enjoyed a free and comfortable childhood in the less-developed Zhengzhou and her grandparents’ village. The gap in their social and personal experiences became evident during their high school years. Due to the scarcity of educational resources in Henan Province, Jingwen faced notoriously intense school competition and a toxic exam-oriented culture. In 2014, Jingwen managed to gain admission to a college in Beijing, competing against a million peers, just as her father had done 30 years earlier. Now, the Xu and Li families crossed paths again in the city of Beijing.