Vicki and Peter’s Wedding at the Museum of Natural History

Vicki & Peter:

THE BEGINNING

“You were born on a Saturday.” and just like that, the seed of a lifetime together was planted. The time was mid-August, 2011. The place was a bar in the East Village area of New York City. Vicki (then known as Xiaoxiao) met Peter on a Saturday night at a birthday party for two mutual friends, whereupon he quickly impressed her with his charm and math skills. After a bit of small talk, Peter felt emboldened enough to pull out his party trick of calculating the day of the week of any date in history. And Vicki, having somewhat of a weakness for nerdy guys, almost swooned after verifying Peter’s claim about her birth date on her phone – almost, since she did have a boyfriend at the time.
When Peter discovered this most unfortunate fact on Facebook soon after that night, he thought “well, that ship has sailed”. It was quite disappointing for him, since Peter thought he and Vicki might’ve been a great match – they both were born in China and came to the US at the age of 11, thereby sharing a unique cultural background.

After almost 8 months of zero contact, Peter received a Facebook message out of the blue from Vicki; she was wondering if they could catch up over coffee. Pleasantly surprised but slightly confused, Peter quickly agreed and they met up after work several days later. Vicki told Peter that, while she had been single for 4 months by then, she actually wanted to meet up because she was seeking some advice from an objective party as to if she should quit her finance job that was making her life miserable, and go pursue her passion of being a writer. Peter’s advice – struggling writers often starve – was enough to help Vicki make up her mind, and so she continued on with her unhappy job while collecting a paycheck.

Luckily, the encounter reignited the sparks between Vicki and Peter that had been dormant since they first met at the party, and they soon started dating. Over the next several months, their romance blossomed and they quickly became inseparable, despite Peter’s best efforts to the contrary. In less than a year, they decided to become co-owners of a condo in Chelsea, as things were starting to look very promising and surely, buying is better than renting. They also took in a roommate – Quincy, a yellow Labrador who’s been in the Li family ever since his birth. Vicki, Peter, and Quincy enjoyed their lives in Chelsea, taking turns being the master of their household, though Quincy came out on top most of the time.

THE PROPOSAL Though Vicki and Peter had gotten well past the point where they were sure that they’d eventually get married, it was still unknown as to when they would get engaged, and how the proposal was going to happen. After they went ring-shopping together and picked out a diamond ring to Vicki’s liking, the timer was ticking down for Peter to make the grand gesture and make it official. Eventually, Peter settled for a private, simple approach – on Valentine’s Day, Vicki came back from her morning workout class, to find Peter with a bouquet of flowers and her favorite macarons in the living room, and Quincy nowhere in sight. Peter, with an impish smile, opened up the bedroom door and Quincy came dashing out wearing a shirt that said “Will you marry me?” (With ‘me’ crossed out and ‘Peter’ written under it, just to avoid any confusion.) After momentarily fainting and collapsing into Peter’s arms, Vicki tearfully listened to his sweet proposal speech and said yes.