The Aesthetic at This California Ranch Wedding Was Maximalist, “Craigslist

By Alexandra Macon

Justine Jen-Jen Li and Alexander Djerassi both attended Princeton University, but they didn't officially meet until they were living in San Francisco after college—and with the help of an algorithm. "As a product manager obsessed with efficiency, I enjoyed coming up with ways to apply those same metrics for success to places they don't really belong, like my romantic life," says Justine, who works at a software company and is also a multimedia artist, of how she and Alexander first became acquainted. "What began as an archaeological excavation of his social media profiles turned into a series of surveys designed to surface pain points and navigate retention issues throughout our courtship."

For Alexander—an entrepreneur, amateur magician, and the former chief of staff to the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs at the U.S. State Department—Justine's data-driven approach was both amusing and revealing. "Those surveys gave us confidence that despite straddling a multitude of differences, we ultimately had mutual product market fit," she recalls.

After dating for almost two years, the couple got engaged while at home in Woodside during a moment of respite in the middle of a scary time in the Bay Area. "On September 9, 2021, the skies were orange from the CZU Complex Fires," Justine remembers. An evacuation warning had been issued, and the air around them was stifling.

"I thought perhaps the fires had put Alexander in a particularly apocalyptic mood, but actually what happened was he had consulted my parents and Google to select a numerologically auspicious date," Justine explains of why he forged ahead with the proposal on such an intense day. "The character nine (九 or jiu) in Chinese is a homonym for long (久 or jiu). So the date 9/9 is considered an auspicious date that wishes us longevity both in our marriage and lives, notwithstanding the havoc wreaked upon our communities by the fires."

Alexander's love for magic meant that he proposed with a classic sleight of hand trick: conjuring the ring—an unheated teal sapphire surrounded by a halo of diamonds—out of a red handkerchief.

"The planning process [that followed] was chaotic and excruciating," Justine jokes. "Occasionally, it was what a masochist would call ‘fun.’ I approached it with the pure unadulterated neuroticism of an INTP going through a delayed quarter-life crisis. At times, it felt like we were planning Fyre Festival 2.0. All of my skills as a product manager went out the window. I prioritized everything—which actually meant nothing at all—made zero tradeoffs and changed scope constantly."

As an ardent consumer of reality television for most of her life, it was always somewhat mystifying to Justine how intense brides could become during the course of planning what is essentially a party. "Now having been through this particular wringer myself, I have nothing but empathy, thoughts, and prayers for bridezillas everywhere," she says. "The victim of our chaotic situation was wedding planner Alexis Eskenazi. She did a heroic job of keeping us calm and on track […]."

The couple decided at the outset that the wedding would be entirely outdoors, but sadly, because of travel restrictions, Justine had to assume pretty early on that much of her family from Taiwan and Shanghai would not be able to make the journey. To represent her entire maternal family, her cousin Yocheng took one month off work. "Thinking about the sacrifice he made still makes me quite emotional," Justine says.

Because she knew how difficult it would be for family abroad to join in person, Justine put a lot of thought into her save the dates. "I wanted recipients to be able to experience our love from afar, through a physical object they could interact with," she says. "What I ended up designing was an abstract Go board, printed on a double silk twill scarf, with chimeric Chinese zodiac animals hidden throughout a floral border. Go is an ancient Chinese strategy game, and the oldest continuously played board game in the world. In many ways, Alexander and I came to truly know each other through playing this game. Playing Go is how we became intimately acquainted with each others’ best and worst instincts, anxieties, and strengths."

Each scarf arrived in a box that Justine custom designed and produced with IBEX Packaging, along with Go stones, a handwritten note, and a gameplay booklet that introduced guests to the game. "It was so special to be able to share our love for the game with our loved ones," she says. "Especially those who could not be with us in person."

From the very start of the planning process, Justine knew that she wanted to wear a hanfu (漢服) for the Han Diaspora Ceremony (more commonly referred to as the Tea Ceremony). "I fully entrusted Suzanne Hanley from Atelier des Modistes to breathe life into my vision," she says. "For months, she offered advice and expertise in selecting and sourcing the fabrics and provided several rounds of feedback on my sketches for the embroidery." Hanley also paid keen attention to the shape and volume of the sleeves, mocking the robe in muslin so they could make adjustments along the way.

Justine's hanfu featured whimsical embroidered scenes such as a phoenix with eight snakes for tails, chimeric Chinese zodiac animals, and a sunny side up UFO abducting a maneki-neko. The garment was constructed with Swiss beading mesh, a sheer silk gazar from Italy to give light structure and keep the hanfu's traditional shape, and antique French jacquard trim featuring cherry blossoms, peonies, chrysanthemums, butterflies, and tiny silver diamonds that mimic snakeskin—a nod to the bride's Zodiac animal. "The end product was something so unique and personal," Justine says. "It's an interactive family heirloom that can be added to as it passes from generation to generation, yet will always remind the wearer of our Chinese diasporic roots."

The bride collaborated with designer and family friend Ellen Wise to create a custom, one-of-a-kind gown for her western wedding ceremony. The dress was constructed of antique ivory silk mikado, providing a lovely, voluminous drape and exquisite folds. The gown's embellishments—embroidered bees, beetles, and flowers—were designed by the bride for her hanfu and are appliquéd at the shoulders of this dress as well. The bow was a last-minute, day-of addition that completed this timeless look.

"For makeup, I learned by trial and error that it is important to work with someone who understands how to accentuate Asian features," Justine says. "I am so grateful to have eventually discovered Lydia Song, who not only had a laid-back and calm demeanor but also spoke fluent Mandarin Chinese. Hearing the familiar dulcet tones of another native Chinese speaker put my grandmother at ease on the big day."

Alexander, meanwhile, wore a classic black tuxedo found and tailored at the same San Francisco clothiers where, unbeknownst to him, his own dad had bought his first tuxedo some five decades earlier. An illustration designed by the bride was printed on silk and stitched into the inside lining of the jacket.

"I sent my wedding party the most unhinged email about six weeks before the wedding," Justine admits. "It was accompanied by a 20-slide PowerPoint presentation and spreadsheet on my vision for everyone to adhere to a jewel-toned color palette and silk satin materials. Half of my bridesmaids were pregnant too. I frankly don't know how they all managed to pull it together—all I know is that they did."

The wedding took place on the family's ranch in Woodside, California, where Alexander grew up. Perched upon a clearing, the site overlooks rolling hills and forested valleys stretching toward the Pacific Ocean. Large, sculptural art is embedded into the landscape, and guests were able to view works by artists including Mauro Statuoli, Bruce Beasley, and Bruce Johnson while mingling.

The ceremony was officiated by the couple's good friend from Princeton, Itamar Bar-Zakay. The Han Diaspora Ceremony was initiated by eight drummers from a local taiko group, Taiko SOBA. "It was mesmerizing to hear the deep rhythmic bass their drums reverberate across the hills," Justine remembers. "One of the main purposes of this ceremony is to honor one's ancestors and parents by serving tea and exchanging gifts and food. The program incorporated both ancient Chinese rituals as well as new traditions manifested by me, a member of the Han Chinese and Taiwanese diaspora and Alexander, who is of mixed European ancestry. The rituals involved a lot of bowing in all directions, eating from the same bowl, drinking sweet and bitter liquids (to symbolize how the couple will stay together through sweet and bitter times), and lighting incense at the family shrine."

In a newly minted tradition, the bride and groom also invited family members and friends to play them in a marital game of Go by placing a black stone on their board, symbolizing how the couple commits to making strategic decisions together as a wedded couple.

After the wedding, Justine changed from her hanfu back into her western wedding dress, and guests made their way to cocktails. "I had spent two weeks leading up to the wedding, driving around the Bay Area with a U-Haul and picking up free furniture that we used to build an outdoor turn-of-the-century living room space," Justine says. "I would describe the wedding aesthetic as maximalist, Craigslist-core."

Dinner began at sunset and was accompanied by a marathon of speeches. For dessert, guests enjoyed Fried Chicken Ice Cream by Life Raft Treats and a dish-sponge cake served with lemon-elderberry syrup in mini refurbished dish soap bottles. An antique, early 1900s dresser was repurposed as a "ramen bar," stocked full of the bride's favorite brand of cup noodles for guests to enjoy as a late-night snack break from the dance floor. Finally, later in the evening, it was time for the cake-cutting. "A few months before our wedding day, I became fixated on this idea of building a Rube Goldberg machine to cut our wedding cake," Justine says. "The machine demo did not go smoothly, but it only served to enhance a wabi-sabi aesthetic that evolved throughout the evening."

The machine was also the perfect physical metaphor to describe the couple's love—intentional, imperfect, complicated, and functional. "The truth is, I didn't fall in love with him," Justine says. "I engineered myself into love with him. This love was as complex as a Rube Goldberg machine. From the algorithms designed to match us to the series of human decisions I made against impulse and gravity itself—every single time I summoned the kinetic energy to get up, get dressed, and interact, instead of staying home in bed to eat hot chips. Our love was an amalgamation of chain reactions—the pushes, the pulls, the attraction against all odds that endured forces both profound and mundane, both beyond and within our control—a global pandemic, quarantine psychosis, the looming threat of war between great nations, online consumerism, and low-resolution Zoom calls."

After the Rube Goldberg Machine demo, the newlyweds hit the dance floor with close friends and family. Later in the evening, they eventually cozied up in the Rube Goldberg Machine lounge with steaming cups of instant ramen before heading back to their home just down the hill, while the remaining guests retired to the glamp-site.

"From the other side of this experience, I believe that planning a wedding is supposed to be as hellish as it often is," Justine muses when asked how she feels about everything now. "It puts a couple through the kind of shared trauma that bonds you and fortifies you for whatever may come next, whether it be war, disease, or children who never sleep. On the other side of a challenging wedding process comes a sense of preparedness for handling situations that are often momentous and also entirely out of your control."

At our San Francisco home, heading to the welcome party to kick off our wedding weekend festivities.

A stunning bouquet by Brute Botanical greeted guests at the welcome party hosted by Kit Tobin, a close family friend.

Guests ascend the stairs.

Enjoying oysters, cocktails, and conversation in the open-air atrium.

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Watercress soup served in assorted demi-tasses, part of the DeYoung and Tobin Collection.

The table is set in a formal dining room downstairs.

Out of town guests flying in from London, Paris, and Taiwan had a chance to get acquainted over an intimate candlelit dinner.

Salad with a side of sequins.

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