Welcome to our wedding - we're so happy to begin the married life with you by our side.

We met back in 2014 in NTU. The moment we stepped in the classroom of our very first class, we are deeply attracted by each other (this is Alan’s dream version). In fact, we are classmates in the same department. The whole journey has begun with the traditional NTUAS night performance with a show featuring college freshman. We are the leading actor and actress, which we performed A Midsummer Night’s Dream and eventually fall in love. Since then, we go to school and study hard together, and came to the US for grad school. Looking back to the time when we meet, it was a wonderful midsummer memory where two young people share our souls. And today, we are inviting our family and friends to witness the next chapter of our love story.

Life brought us to the lone star state Texas for our graduate school but we are not alone. We are excited on this new journey to explore the US when we packed six full luggages before the night of traveling abroad. We start with our cozy first rental place at the Ridge, where years of great memories were generated and shared between friends there. We decorate the house together with all the jigsaw collections. We study and do research daily. We had our first car Polar Bear that serves five great years with safe travels. We had numerous lovely friends and family members visiting us. It has been a grateful couple of years where PhD isn’t destroying our mental capability just simply because we are facing and acing through all the obstacles together. Texas A&M is well known for its 12th man culture, which implies that someone is always backing you up when you’re fighting, and yes we do have each other following that spirit and brings us through the days of dealing with research and life difficulties. Texas is always a home to us. The intensity of heat translates to our passion of love for this state. Living in College Station for five years made us the better version of couple together, we share the living habits, we cook together (technically vvn does all the cooking but Alan will always give a big thumbs up with tornado-swallowing all the great dishes), we watch TV together, we celebrate important days and milestones together. Time flies, as people ask on how PhD life is, we’ll for sure say it’s hard but most importantly it’s sweet. We’re grateful that we have each other in this stage of life, and at the moment that we get our diplomas, we are ready to start our new phase of life together. And we’re always looking forward to coming back to Texas, with a vibe of home sweet home. Gig’em!

As life comes to the stage after school, we are looking for opportunities to progress in our professional career and to feed our family. We got our dream jobs at different states nearby. It is one of the challenging times that we had to travel slightly longer to see each other, but it makes us enjoy our time together more than before. It has become a new routine to looking forward to, “the travel day” when we are scheduled to reunite after a long haul of working hard. The time in OR or the time in CA are both precious, it gives us the chances to explore both beautiful cities, tax free on shopping, and enjoy nice Asian cuisines. Most importantly, we know we can work independently in different places, but it lets us realize that it’s always better to stay together on work efficiency and happiness in life. As the state name suggested, Orca is an animal that has freedom navigating in the sea, we have each other’s back and selected each other as the one in the enormous sea. In numerous flights between OR and CA, I got good tier status in Airlines, but what really comes up in mind is, we want to see each other more often, we like each other, and we want to start a family together. And all of these thoughts brought Alan to the long planning journey of making the proposal.

Coming soon... [Alan is working on this part of our story. Good things are worth the wait, and the best is yet to come.] Finally the wait is over, let us jump on the time machine and flash back to the moment that Vivian said yes! The story goes all the way back to a normal day, when Vivian shared an Instagram post with me, saying let’s play a small game on Christmas (her favorite holiday): let’s pick a store and buy three items for each other with specified categories, like food, drinks, or any special mystery items. How about let’s select Dondondonki since we’re going to Hawaii to enjoy the Christmas sun? I was like, you just delivered the assist of the year! For sure, this is the perfect chance for me to propose in the most surprising way, what if the ring is the bonus mystery item of the game. And so the planning journey begins. Thinking of measuring the finger perimeter during sleep, never get a good chance, so eventually with ponpon’s advise, Aggie ring is my best friend. As I brought her Aggie ring along with me to the store to get a ring, the clerk was like, haha we don’t need that, it’s an universal size, and bring her to the store if you succeed. For sure I’ll succeed, paying directly with the big ring, literally big that is super loose as Vivian has thin fingers. Flying to Hawaii is a long flight, having to hide the secret for so long and caring my carry on bag doesn’t get squeezed too hard, and also feel like I’m carrying a truck of cash with me. Luckily the game is scheduled on the first day of the trip, and let me give people a good piece of advise, dondondonki’s flowers are not the best selection, Trader Joe’s may have a better selection. Nevertheless, I still picked an ideal bouquet, actually modest size so that it could fit in a shopping bag instead of 99 roses. Grabbed a lot of good snacks too, and played hide and seek in the supermarket to prevent the flowers being exposed. It was the longest walk home and the longest dinner I had, not because I eat super slow if people know me. Finally, it’s time to propose. In the hotel room, starting to reveal the items we bought for each other one by one, I set the rule of closing eyes on each reveal, things appear normally with Calpis, Japanese snacks, and eventually, the bouquet the ring and the fiancé! Would you marry me? The cliche but necessary and iconic sentence, if this is what you think I said, oops, this will surprise you. I got the most legendary reaction, without me asking the question yet, Vivian said: what! You are doing this now! Looking at the ring and said yes! I was like I haven’t even repeat the iconic sentence lol, she realized that after 3 seconds, did you propose? Ok my time to propose, would you marry me? I got a double confirmation yes! And here comes fiancé and fiancée that you all will see on the wedding day! We look forward to welcoming each and everyone of you to celebrate and share the joy with us! See you soon!