Weekly Report #87 - We hosted our own Pokémon wedding and also held an exhibition for it.

Introduction#

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This article is a record and reflection on life from 2025-02-03 to 2025-03-18.

Long time no see.

These past few weeks have perhaps been the most fulfilling in terms of life experiences and emotions in recent years. Since the end of last year, I have been planning the wedding and exhibition in Hangzhou, and just completed the return banquet in Inner Mongolia last weekend. It seems I didn't even have a few hours to sit down and write. However, there is so much to say, and I finally found the time to update the weekly report.

About the Wedding#

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Perhaps at a certain age, over the past two years, I have attended four weddings of friends/classmates of the same age and served as a groomsman twice, which allowed me to closely observe various forms of weddings and ceremonies.

Since the proposal in early December last year Proposal, my senior and I have discussed our ideas about the wedding many times.

Initially, we seemed unable to understand and accept the meaning of a wedding, feeling it was more like a performative formality. Friends and family come from all over the country, but the scene can be so busy that it’s hard to have a proper conversation, and after the excitement, it’s often difficult to leave behind anything meaningful.

So at first, we thought of another way, wanting to wear a veil and visit some long-lost friends across the country. They might already be at various stages of life and love, and we wanted to interview them about their feelings on marriage and love, turning this "trip" into a documentary, and finally holding a small thank-you banquet to show the video.

We actually started this plan, with the first stop in Shanghai, where we met a few friends and shot some footage. However, after returning, I felt somewhat defeated; it seemed a bit too idealistic. The atmosphere at the dinner table was great after a long absence, but the depth of conversation often fell short, making it hard to capture their most genuine feelings about love in just a few short sentences. Coupled with the exhaustion from running around on weekends, my confidence in the whole idea diminished significantly after just the first week.

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Later, another idea emerged. My senior has painted many pictures over the years, and I have also captured some images with my camera. Why not plan a personal exhibition, connecting our perspectives and self-expressions into two lines?

For this seemingly sudden idea, we had little confidence. Professional curators seemed reluctant to take on such overly personal exhibitions, and friends found it hard to coordinate due to their own work schedules. In the end, they all suggested finding a wedding planner to help with the planning and execution. Since we needed to find a wedding planner anyway and would have a banquet, we thought, why not just hold a wedding? Thus, we found ourselves back at square one.

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Even so, we still retained some of our own principles. The wedding adopted a Pokémon/Pikachu theme; we only kept one traditional element, the tea ceremony, which our parents deemed important, while other elements like the bride's escort and wedding car were all canceled; we did not hire a host but instead hosted it ourselves, selecting all the processes and even the background music for each segment.

After quickly finalizing the wedding planner, hotel, photography, wedding dress, and makeup, we focused more of our thoughts and energy on the design of the wedding and exhibition itself. We were fortunate to find a Western restaurant, and after discussing our ideas with the owner, she was very supportive and suggested we use February 14, Valentine's Day, as the opening, which would better showcase the theme related to love and also warm up for our wedding day.

However, initially, we were not very clear about what we ultimately wanted to present in the exhibition. After several planning discussions with the wedding planner, there was not much progress, and we felt that we were merely showcasing some of our love stories, which was far from a more socially meaningful exhibition. Until one night, less than a week before the exhibition, while reorganizing the plan, I realized I still couldn't accept a compromise, and a similar sense of frustration gradually emerged.

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My senior noticed my gloominess. Despite her love for going to bed early, she took her sketchbook and helped me sort out the entire design of the exhibition from the beginning until late at night, and gradually, it began to take shape. We then discussed the plans with the wedding planner a few more times, and finally, we completed the setup just before Valentine's Day.

In the following days, we also created an online website for the exhibition — 「yuloveboyi.com」, allowing friends who couldn't attend in person to understand what we wanted to express through this site.

The wedding turned out to be much livelier than we imagined, with many friends and family coming from various places, meeting some colleagues we had worked with for a long time but had never met in person, and even open-source big names like Anthony Fu and Bread came to the exhibition and wedding.

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In all the unknown corners

Life happens to each of us

People randomly gather together

Then scatter to various places

Celebrating the joyful events

Thus, the lights come on

A friend wrote this passage and sent it to me when my senior and I exchanged vows on site.

I really like the movies 「Groundhog Day」 and 「It's a Wonderful Life」, which have similar scenes, and also reflect what we wanted to express in the theme of our exhibition. Two ordinary people in the world live their own lives, pushed forward by the tides of society in confusion, but they also have their own circles and worlds under their brushes, occasionally intersecting and sometimes separating.

The small things and kindness we accumulate in our daily lives and throughout our lives eventually converge into a point, just like the party at the end of Groundhog Day, where Phil and everyone meet in the cycle of life, either having given kindness or having intersected, and ultimately, we stand at the center of life, with everyone coming for us to celebrate together, tears in our eyes.

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The most common feedback we received after the wedding was, "This wedding is different from any I've attended before, it was very touching." While we were happy, we were also a bit puzzled. In fact, we still had a traditional wedding; simplifying the process or hosting it ourselves is no longer a novelty. So what exactly was different in everyone's eyes?

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After much contemplation, we arrived at the answer — "Love" itself is already a scarce commodity in this society. This love refers not only to romantic love but also to a broader love for life, a yearning for beauty, and kindness towards others.

Moreover, expressing "love" is even more precious. Perhaps we merely showcased a corner of our lives, yet it was enough to touch people's hearts. We also vaguely felt that perhaps our insistence on holding such an exhibition was a way to convey love itself.

It has been a few weeks since the wedding, and the energy it brought still lingers. I think back to the times I was entangled in doubts about the significance of doing this, and now I realize it might have just been an excuse; allowing beautiful things to happen is the most important meaning of life.

We hired a videographer to record the entire process of our wedding and exhibition, and the video is now online at 「Checklist Life | We Hosted Our Own Pokémon Wedding and Held an Exhibition for It」. P1 is a short film, and P2 is the full record. Everyone is welcome to step into my memories together.

Interesting Things and Items#

Inputs#

Although most interesting inputs will be automatically synced in the 「Yu's Life」 Telegram channel, I still selected a portion to list here, making it feel more like a newsletter. Additionally, I built a microblog using the Telegram Channel messages as content sources — 「daily.pseudoyu.com」, making it easier to browse.

Favorites#

Articles#

Weekend Notes from Tiantai Mountain National Qing Temple, finally caught my senior updating her article!
How I Use Apple Notes for Note-taking, tried it for a while, but ultimately switched to Obsidian due to markdown support, while retaining the exact same PARA structure and ideas.
A Small Thing About Helping, a sincere and moving share that also inspired the desire to do some random kindness.
A Decade Later, A Decade Lost, touched.
Post 43: Intentionally Making Close Friends, all emotions/relationships need to be "managed" with care.
MCP Ultimate Guide, had a preliminary experience with Cursor's MCP but didn't use it for production-level purposes, curious about future application scenarios.
Mist - 静かな森, I enjoy reading Innei's notes, reminding me that I should update the weekly report this weekend.
React Libraries for 2025, checking out what’s currently being used in frontend 👀
My First Chrome Extension and Thoughts on the AI Era, in the era of LLMs, the ability to write code has been perfectly realized, but there are indeed more situations of "only knowing a little" about the principles.
Cursor for Large Projects, many tasks in my recent work have already been handled by Cursor, learning to optimize usage methods.

Videos#

Podcasts#

Books#

Notes from the Basement, a bit hard to read.
100 Basics, currently reading.
Mr. Iwata, this is probably why I will always love Nintendo, feeling the transmission of joy.

Movies#

Like Father, Like Son, I like Hiroshi Kore-eda's rhythm and visuals, but the inner transitions and expressiveness of this film are quite average, and the exploration of father-son relationships is only superficial.
Good Things, both the topic and filming techniques are stunning, and it touches on social issues like feminism, "Integrity, bravery, and readership" also inexplicably ignited some passion.
Love Myth, I really like it, from the same director as "Good Things," with a similar narrative style, but more everyday and restrained, allowing for a deeper sense of core, especially after just holding the exhibition, it resonates more regarding life and personal expression.
All In, the plot is a bit childish, but the tension and oppression are well rendered, and it gives a unique sense of realism for someone in my industry who often stays in Thailand 🤣

Anime#

League of Legends: Arcane Season 2, quality remains high.
Furiko's Funeral, I followed it weekly during serialization, and I just finished the last two episodes these days. The setting is great, and the rhythm is comfortable, making it a very calming series.
Rick and Morty Season 6, catching up on tags.

Series#

Life Division Surgery Season 2, currently watching.
Not Kind Enough Us, the perspective shifts and coincidences in the first two episodes were somewhat novel, but the plot direction gradually became absurd, feeling a bit forced in the ending, quite average.
Memoirs of Shen Zui, decent for understanding military history, but the inevitable self-glorification in the autobiography and many political confessions become tiring after a while.
The Last of Us Season 1, great pacing, the independent storylines in the first few episodes are very exciting, and watching the series makes me want to learn more about the game.
My Altay, if they don't shoot the eighth episode, I think it could still get four stars, but the forced conflict at the end felt unnecessary.