Valentines at Emerson: Where Love Took Center Stage
At Emerson College, you never quite know where, or when, love might find you. It might happen while hosting the EVVYs, during Orientation move-in, attending a student organization event, or even in your very first conversation with a roommate.
We asked Emerson couples to share their love stories. Here’s what they had to say.
Stories have been edited for length.
Kayla LaRosa ’20 and Brian Danuff ’21
We first met when I was working as a Piano Row move-in assistant. I moved him into his sophomore year dorm and met his whole family who had come to drop him off. We became closer after we started taking more upper level journalism classes together, and we worked for WEBN. We really hit it off when we traveled to Baltimore for a journalism conference, and we ended up spending all night talking to each other in the hotel lobby before getting on a flight back to Boston. Eight years later, we are engaged! We’re getting married in October of this year. We live in New York City and Brian works as a sports producer for ABC7. I recently left broadcast media, and now I work in communications and I have a thriving content creation business.
Several members of our bridal party are now lifelong friends whom we met at Emerson. We also invited our favorite journalism professor, Angela-Anderson Connolly (shout out!), to be there on our special day. Our engagement photos were also taken by a fellow Emerson alum, Sophia Giordano ’22. The best thing about Emerson is the people you meet and keep with you along the way!
Adele Friedman ’92 and Peter Goldberg ’91
We met at an RDO Frat party on January 20, 1991. We’ve been married for almost 30 years. We got married at Windows on the World NYC on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center. We are having an incredible adventure with two children, two pairs of rescue kittens and a sheepadoodle. If we are searching for our secret—it might be that she is his waves, and he is her rock.
Adele has performed improvisational comedy, acted for TV/stage and film, been a freelance entertainment writer, and cast and directed Off-Broadway shows. She became a momager and their teenage daughter has more than ½ million followers. After Peter worked at the assignment desk at news stations in NYC, he decided to pursue a career in finance. He is a partner and CIO of Halcyon Financial Partners.
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Catie Rippin ’08 and Steve Rippin ’08
We met at Emerson working on the EVVYs (Catie was an EP and Steve was a host) in 2007. Now almost 19 years later we’re married with two kids living in LA! He even proposed in Boston since that’s where we met and fell in love.
We spent the summer before our senior year falling in love and later both moved to Los Angeles to participate in ELA that spring. After graduation, we decided to stay in LA, where Steve worked on South Park and I worked on various TV shows and films. After eight years together, we returned to Boston for his mom’s retirement party, and Steve brought me back to where it all began—the Public Garden, right across from Emerson, where he proposed. We celebrated 10 years of marriage last year and now have two beautiful daughters, Emma and Maddie, along with our rescue pup, George. We still live in LA and remain close with so many of our Emerson classmates.
Jillian Anderson ’19 and Lincoln Griswold ’19
We met in 2015 during freshman orientation. We were both VMA Majors, in the same classes, in the Honor Program together, we lived in the same building (Piano Row), had the same friend group, and were in the same student organizations together (we even had the same rotational role on Emerson Channel’s Speechless show). We started dating on November 21, 2015, and have been together ever since. We attended Kasteel Well together and ELA together, and moved to LA. We got engaged on November 27, 2021 during a trip to Boston (where Lincoln popped the question at the gazebo in the Boston Common), and then got married at the Wyndham Boston Beacon Hill on November 12, 2022. We even hired several Emerson alum wedding vendors, including our amazing photographer Riley West of Riley West Photography! Nowadays, Lincoln and I live with our dog, Ruthie, in Los Angeles, where Lincoln is a Jr. Online Editor at Hurwitz Creative and I am a Nerdy Wedding/Event & Travel Planner at my company, Fantastical Adventures.
Jennie May ’06 and John Gardiner ’05
We met in October 2005 at a Kappa Gamma Chi meeting and had our first date on December 9, 2005 going to a Phi Alpha Tau wine and cheese party together. It was pretty clear from the start we were meant to be together, and dated long distance for two years after graduation, with Jennie in Washington, D.C., and John in Los Angeles. Jennie got a job as the Special Events Manager at the Los Angeles Philharmonic and moved across the country to end the long distance nonsense. We got married in 2013, bought a house in 2017 and have two children, Gibson, now 8, and Maeve, just turned 3. John works as a cinematographer (a recent project is The Class on PBS) and Jennie leads the social innovation design program at ArtCenter College of Design. We both still see, talk, and work with friends we met at Emerson every day, and love the community we found there. On our 20th anniversary of our first date, we recreated a photo taken of us that evening, but our son and daughter are the photobombers.
Casey Duby ’21 and Sam Wiener ’20
Sam and I were random roommates freshman year (2017-2018) and became instant friends, coordinating our wall decor and talking into the night from our beds.
But we actually didn’t start dating until the summer of 2021 when we’d both graduated and moved to LA. We’d started mailing each other letters during the pandemic and when we were together again finally realized how we felt about each other. Now she’s an Associate Publicist at Henry Holt and I’m writing for Screen Rant working toward being a TV writer.
Emily Patrick ’07 and Katie O’Neil ’09
Katie and Emily’s story began in the spring of 2007 in the basement of the Little Building, where they (hilariously) met at a performance of The Vagina Monologues at The Cabaret – thanks to a mutual friend and excellent timing. Though they weren’t in classes together, they were both involved in Orientation and student government, so some of their earliest dates looked a lot like hanging out in the student life office or staffing the desk, which turned out to be surprisingly romantic. After surviving two long-distance stints – when Emily went to grad school in San Diego and later spent a year working for the Detroit Tigers – they eventually settled back in Boston. Married in 2013 and surrounded by Emerson friends who remain close to this day, they now juggle a joyfully chaotic life with three kids (9, 7, and 3). Katie works as a speech-language pathologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and teaches a graduate course at Emerson, while Emily works for the City of Boston’s Office of Small Business – proof that some Emerson love stories come full circle.
Joan Schubin ’12 and Jim Schubin ’11
We met at Emerson in November 2010, performing together in the mini-musical version of Chess. We began dating in December, and were engaged in the summer of 2012. We were married in Colorado in 2013 in the same town Jim proposed. 13 years later, Joan works as the middle school drama teacher in Hopewell, and Jim runs a private voice/acting studio in central New Jersey. We are in the process of building our new home in Lawrenceville, New Jersey with our 6-year-old son, James, and our two cats, Ben and JJ. Emerson was the foundation of so many opportunities and lasting relationships in our lives. We will always be grateful for everything it offered to us.
Sam Abby ’07 and Laura Abby ’07
We met at Emerson in the fall of 2004 when Sam pledged AEPhi and became my sorority sister. Our relationship evolved into something more, and we officially became a couple in fall 2006.
We both graduated in May 2007, and we were married in September 2013. Together we have two beautiful boys—Quinn Emerson, age 9, and Simon Penn, almost 6.
Sam worked for CAA after her semester in the LA program, and remained in the entertainment industry for more than a decade. She now works in market research. I am a writer who has been featured in major publications, and in 2023 I worked with fellow Emerson alumni Molly O’Keefe ’06 on Seventeen: Conversations With My Teenage Self, a podcast produced by Paradiso Media. The second season of my podcast (Un)seen: Queer Millennial Life, Unfiltered, is out now. I currently teach writing and English composition at SUNY colleges in New York’s Hudson Valley, where we live.
Mitchell Krpata ’03 and Molly (Verock) Krpata ’03
We both lived on the 7th floor of the Little Building freshman year (1999). We knew who each other was but didn’t really hang out until the summer after we graduated (2003). We both met up with a few mutual friends and our time at Emerson was our ice breaker. The rest is history. Now 23 years later we are married with two beautiful children. Our oldest’s middle name is Emerson in honor of where we met.
David Carleton ’89 and Ann-Marie Carleton ’90
Ann-Marie (Accurso) and I both lived in Charlesgate Dorm, she was a freshman and I was an RA in 1986. We were both journalism majors, worked at EIV and were in an adjoining fraternity/sorority. Our pairing seemed inevitable.
Married 31 years, we both have worked in media in the Detroit market where we’ve raised 3 children.
In 2018, our oldest began at Emerson in the BCE program. The tradition continues! We drive by the campus on our way to our place in Maine every year.
Marlynn Schotland ’96 and Alain Schotland ’96
Alain and I met in the fall of 1993, during our sophomore year at Emerson. We were both in the broadcast journalism program, but we met at a frat party (as you do). Since graduating in 1996, we’ve worked together at TV stations (I was an anchor/reporter; he was a producer), run a marketing and design company together, and we have raised two kids and several Labrador retrievers together. We currently live in Portland, Oregon, and both of our kids are in college. Together we run Urban Bliss Life, a food, wine, and travel website, so we’re still putting our journalism, photography, and videography skills to use every day as we develop recipes, and travel around the world to write food and wine travel guides. Many of the amazing friends we made at Emerson are still our best friends to this day. We cherish our Emerson College experience!
Jessica Bonet ’12 and Robert Leshin ’12
Rob and I met at Emerson in 2008 on freshman move-in day. We were neighbors in Piano Row (Writer’s Block represent!). We started dating in November 2008 (first date was a stroll through Chinatown to the Seaport) and we’ve been dating ever since. Now we live in Brooklyn with our 18-month-old son!
Aaron Nobil ’14 and Jodie Rollins Nobil ’14, MS ’16
My wife, Jodie (Rollins) Nobil and I met in our sophomore year at Emerson but grew closer as Orientation Leaders at the beginning of our junior year and started dating shortly afterwards. We both graduated from Emerson in 2014. Jodie then received her Masters from Emerson in 2016 and currently works as a Speech Language Pathologist in the Milford Public School system in Massachusetts. I was a VMA major but now work in internal communications for a global biotechnology organization. We got married in 2019, currently live in Northborough, Massachusetts, have one son named Steven (5-year-old kindergartner), a Boston terrier puppy named Rocky, and are pregnant with our second child expected later this spring!
Kenzie Woodrow ’17 and Dallis Seeker ’18
We first met at Emerson in the improv troupe, SwoMo, but also shared a friend group all throughout college and worked together in the admission office. We started dating when Dallis was at ELA and moved in with each other shortly after. We got married on August 16, 2024, in San Diego, and now live in Los Angeles with our two cats. Since graduating, Kenzie has built a career as a film editor and director, and Dallis works as an actor and audiobook narrator. We’re both incredibly grateful that Emerson brought us together!
Erik Press ’90 and Kirsten Hanson-Press ’89
We met in a Fensgate dorm room of a mutual friend in the mid-80s. Erik was drawn to Kirsten’s energy and outgoing personality. For Kirsten, it was Erik’s quiet confidence and sense of adventure. After a first date on January 5, 1987, we married shortly after graduation on November 11, 1990.
That first year out of school was pretty wild—Erik worked on Michael Mann’s The Last of the Mohicans, while Kirsten produced global water ski instructional videos. A move to California reconnected us with many Emerson friends, and we quickly built a life in LA. We both ended up producing music videos, and on the same day in 1997, Erik was on set with the Backstreet Boys making I Want it That Way while Kirsten filmed Notorious B.I.G.’s final video, Hypnotize.
In our early 30s, we adopted two children and became the Hanson-Press family. Erik continued as an executive producer at commercial production companies, VFX shops, and advertising agencies, while Kirsten’s career took an unexpected turn toward education. We’ve traveled extensively for both work and pleasure. During the pandemic, we bought a home in Palm Springs, where we now split our time between L.A. Today, Erik is an executive at an AI production company, and Kirsten runs a college counseling practice—both of us are still in creative fields, just not the ones we imagined back in that Fensgate dorm room. This past November, we celebrated 35 years of marriage.
John Bertsch ’63, MSSp ’67, and Beverly Bertsch ’64
They met while John was working in the dining room at 150 Beacon Street as a student worker. He said it was love at first sight (he still remembers she was wearing a blue knight dress that day). He offered to get Beverly some extra food or dessert just to make an impression. They became friends, and they started dating shortly after. John comes from a very Catholic background (Iowa) and Beverly is Jewish (from Rhode Island), so it was not an easy union for their families to accept, but they got married one year after graduation, and they recently celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary on August 19, 2025. They have two children and six grandchildren.
Caden Ahmad ’23 and Olivia Weiss ’24
We were only a couple doors away from each other in the dorms of the Little Building when we met. We got engaged in 2024 and are now getting married this September in Salem!
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