In February 2017, on the first day of classes at the University of Texas at Austin, Jordan Samantha Goldberg and Adam Elliot Rossman were seated in the same row of a chemistry class. They were in their sophomore year, and neither was looking for a relationship.
“I didn’t go into college thinking I was going to meet my person,” Ms. Goldberg said. “And if I did, I assumed it would be someone from Texas.
After the lecture, they formed a study group with a few classmates and began meeting every day. “There was definitely a spark between us from the beginning,” Mr. Rossman said. “I knew we’d never just be friends.”
As months passed, their friendship grew, and on May 6, Ms. Goldberg invited Mr. Rossman to the JMBLYA music festival in Austin. “I knew he loved concerts,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking of it as a date at all.”
But Mr. Goldberg thought it was and kissed her in the middle of a concert. “I was truly shocked,” she said. “My first reaction was to ask him why he kissed me. He didn’t really have an answer; we both just paused and stared at each other. It felt like this unspoken conversation where we agreed there was no turning back. We kissed again, and that was it — I was all in.”
By July, they became exclusive.
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Ms. Goldberg, 28, who grew up in Houston, is the managing editor of Editorialist, a luxury fashion and lifestyle platform based in New York. She earned a bachelor’s degree in social work from the University of Texas at Austin and a master’s degree in journalism from N.Y.U.
Mr. Rossman, 29, raised in Armonk, N.Y., is a manager in management consulting at KPMG, a global accounting and advisory firm, based in New York. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a bachelor’s in economics.
While in college, they both interned in New York during the summer of 2018 and realized they wanted to live there after graduating. In June 2019, Ms. Goldberg moved to Manhattan’s Murray Hill neighborhood, and Mr. Rossman moved to Gramercy. “We talked early on about living with our friends and experiencing things independently, together,” Mr. Rossman said.
On March 3, 2023, they moved in together in Manhattan’s NoHo neighborhood, where they currently reside and plan to name their future dog Astor.
Later that year, in September, Ms. Goldberg’s father, Joel Goldberg, was in a car accident in Houston that left him unconscious for several minutes. After her father was discharged from the hospital the next day, he went ahead with a previously planned trip to visit his mother in Cape Town, South Africa.
During a layover in New York, Mr. Goldberg met Ms. Goldberg for brunch, where she noticed he was walking oddly. Her father attributed it to a long travel day, but after arriving in South Africa, his condition worsened, with increasing complications in his leg. When he visited the hospital there, they said he was having a slow brain bleed and needed to go into immediate surgery.
The news sent Ms. Goldberg into a panic attack at home while she was in the bath. Mr. Rossman climbed into the bathtub fully clothed to steady her. She and her sister flew to Houston the next morning to care for their parents’ home and dogs while their mother, Allison Goldberg, traveled to South Africa to care for their father.
Mr. Rossman joined them in Houston a day later and stayed for three weeks, providing support. “It just felt so clear — he’s not just my person,” Ms. Goldberg said. “He’s my family and my family’s family.”
The two became engaged in November 2024 and married Feb. 21 at the Arlo, an event space in Austin. Rabbi Will Hall, assistant rabbi at Temple Beth Shalom in Austin, led the ceremony, with 212 guests in attendance.
Ms. Goldberg wore a strapless Danielle Frankel wedding dress and Proenza Schouler heels, and Mr. Rossman wore an Enzo Custom tuxedo with Tecova alligator cowboy boots.
The bride’s mother and father, who has made an “amazing” recovery, walked her down the aisle.
The post They Met in a Chemistry Class, but the Connection Came Later appeared first on New York Times.
