Phillips Academy alums Jing Qu & Jason Nawrocki wed at Andover

When Jing summoned him after two days of banishment, he found she’d decorated the room with swirling colored lights and silver streamers. An inflatable disco ball hung from the ceiling light fixture. There was a whiteboard listing song requests and drink specials. It was $3 for a Pacífico, and his TV was set up for karaoke.

Jing had transformed the room into Silver Cloud, their favorite and sorely missed karaoke bar where they had spent many nights before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down San Francisco. Like so much of the rest of the world, their lives that spring were exclusive to the square footage of their respective apartments. Their roommates had moved out; work went virtual.

In Jing’s living room Silver Cloud, she presented Jason with a microphone. Lyrics by Tom Petty and Toto were cued up on the screen. And that’s when, Jason says, he knew he was in love with her.

“We did hours and hours of karaoke,” he remembers, “just the two of us.”

The former classmates at Phillips Academy in Andover had grown close after Jason started a new job at Facebook (today Meta), where Jing had been working for about a year. On his first day of work there in fall 2018, he boarded the shuttle to Menlo Park and saw Jing in the front row.

Nearly a decade before, Jason, who’d grown up in Andover, had been a day student at Phillips Academy, while Chicago suburb-raised Jing had been a boarder. Even though their graduating class of 2013 was small, their friendship had been mostly exclusive to homework help and happy birthdays.

But they stayed in touch post-graduation. Jing enrolled at Columbia University in New York that September, and Jason took a gap year, playing for the Boston Junior Bruins, and delivering pizzas for a today-closed Papa Gino’s in Andover. After he moved to Maine to attend Bowdoin College the following fall, they continued to chat, once sustaining a 300-day Snapchat streak.

Reunited in San Francisco, their desks at Meta were close enough to signal each other for regular ice cream walks around campus — he was a software engineer, she was in product marketing. On weekends, they merged two friend groups into one. And their chemistry became obvious. One of Jason’s friends had joked early on that the two were destined to get married.

“But we had known each other for so long,” Jing says, “I think we were nervous to make our intentions clear” — until Maggie McGarry’s.

They point to the Outside Lands track Festival, months after their first kiss, in August 2019 as the weekend they became an “official” couple. The evolution from friendship to romance made for a relationship that felt effortless and lived-in: “I’m a pretty introverted person. I’m not socializing all day, every day,” says Jason. “But I did start to notice I could spend infinite time with Jing and not get tired of it at all. It was never too much.”

The following August, Jing accepted a job with Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. By January 2021, she’d relocate to Washington, D.C., for a role within the administration. Her White House schedule was “very intense,” but Jason’s remote job allowed him to visit in D.C. for extended stretches.

“I had no friends or family in D.C.,” remembers Jason. “I wasn’t super excited about moving there. … Nothing was drawing me to the city other than Jing, but then it became obvious that that was the only thing that mattered. It was the first time I thought we were a partnership, we were doing life together.”

“That was a huge sacrifice,” says Jing of Jason’s decision to move to D.C. in 2022. He’d work West Coast hours from home, she’d get home late. They shared a 600-square-foot apartment, “but it was perfect for us.”

The couple moved to Delaware in February 2024 when Jing joined the Biden reelection campaign (she later worked for Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign). She was busier than ever, but when Jason requested she attend his rec league hockey game on April 26, she added it to their calendar.

When they arrived at the Fred Rust Ice Arena at the University of Delaware that night, the rink was empty. But the mood lights were on, and Taylor Swift’s “cowboy like me” played from the speakers. Jason laced his skates and handed Jing her own. She grew up figure skating, and “is probably a better skater than me,” he says.

They glided to the center of the rink, where Jason took a knee, and asked Jing to marry him. Then, he says, “we cut up the ice so much that they had to Zamboni after.”

Jing, today 30, and Jason, 31, married Aug. 16 at Cochran Chapel at Phillips Academy. Campus Chaplain Rev. Gina M. Finocchiaro performed the ceremony.

The couple worked with Katie O’Neil Smith, owner of Katydyd Events, to plan a wedding weekend that gave guests “the Andover experience.” Guests ate lunch at LaRosa’s and Bartlet Street and played tennis on the campus courts before the ceremony.

“It was like the ‘Hometown Date’ on ‘The Bachelor,’” jokes Jing.

As guests arrived at the church, the couple, who today split their time between Andover and Maine, waited in the basement with their immediate families — including Jing’s cousin and parents, and Jason’s parents and two brothers.

“We could hear the people walking in above us,” remembers Jason. “It reminded me of before a sports game, when there’s nervous energy beforehand.”

Jing, sensing the collective nerves before they all walked down the aisle, motioned them together for “a family huddle.” “Don’t be stressed,” she told them, “we’re just here to have fun.”

“It was the exact right thing that needed to be said at the right time, by the right person,” says Jason.

Later that evening, performers from Springfield Lion Dancers appeared during the reception. The couple agrees Jing’s father’s toast was both heartwarming and instantly quotable.

“My dad looked at Jason, and says, so earnestly, ‘Jason is a very good software engineer,’” Jing says. “People have repeated that to Jason — all the validation you could ever need in one sentence.” (Her parents are both software engineers.)

The night — which, at midnight, also marked the groom’s 31st birthday — ended where it all began with an on-campus afterparty at the Andover Inn. Guests drank appletinis and called in pizza orders to a nearby Domino’s. DJ Kate Bay aptly played Taylor Swift’s “So High School,” at the request of the bride, a fan who shares a birthday with the singer.

“And then, she used it in her engagement post [on Instagram],” says Jing with mock indignation.

“So, she copied us,” Jason adds jokingly, “even though she wrote the song.”

Read more from The Big Day, The Boston Globe’s new weddings column.

Rachel Kim Raczka is a writer and editor in Boston. She can be reached at rachel.raczka@globe.com.