Ready for Launch: Houston to New Zealand

On their third date in Houston, Dr. Daniel Vener asked Andrea Allen if she could picture moving to New Zealand with him in about a year. She said yes.

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Credit...Leah Turney

By Rosalie R. Radomsky

Feb. 2, 2024

In June 2021, Dr. Daniel Solomon Vener just had to know if Andrea Elizabeth Allen could see herself moving to New Zealand with him in about a year.

It was only their third date.

Dr. Vener, 31, was then a second-year resident at Ben Taub Hospital, affiliated with Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, where he received a medical degree. He had dreamed of finishing the last six months of his residency in New Zealand.

“Prematurely, yes, of course,” replied Dr. Allen, also 31, who was always up for an adventure and figured she could work on her dissertation remotely.

Last December, she received a doctorate in curriculum and instruction focusing on art education from the University of Houston, where she also received a master’s in the subject and a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism.

Dr. Vener was relieved by her answer because he wanted to continue dating her. He is now a psychiatry fellow in psycho-oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin.

A month earlier, on May 20, 2021, after the two matched on the dating app Hinge, Dr. Allen had been determined to meet him before she left on a 10-day trip to visit a friend in Colombia. So they met a couple of days later, in a downpour, at Grand Prize, a dive bar in Houston.

“He had a wet puppy-dog look,” said Dr. Allen, who easily spotted him standing at the bar. (He had mentioned that he was 6-foot-5 in his dating profile.)

They waited in awkward silence for what seemed like an eternity — but was actually only a couple of minutes — for their $1 Lone Star beers.

“Oh man, she’s really gorgeous,” he recalled thinking, adding that after they sat down, “the conversation kept flowing and flowing and flowing.”

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For the next four hours, he was fascinated as she told him about her Ph.D. and the matching friendship tattoos she had gotten with friends around the world, including a rising sun with a friend in Stockholm and a snowflake with another in Adelaide, Australia.

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Credit...Leah Turney

As they headed to their cars around midnight, Dr. Vener, who rarely stayed up past 10:30, asked if he could kiss her.

“Yes,” she said, on the condition that they stepped away from the middle of the road. Dr. Allen, barely 5-foot-5, then stood on her tiptoes to reach Dr. Vener, a foot taller.

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During her trip to Colombia, they texted daily and she sent him photos, including one of her foot after it was stung by a jellyfish. Shortly after she returned to Houston, souvenirs in hand (dulce de leche chocolate and Colombian coffee), they had dinner at Verdine, a vegan restaurant that has since closed.

Their third date, which began at Luigi’s Pizzeria a couple of days later, turned into what Dr. Vener called “the date of necessary truths.”

After washing down their pizza with drinks at Axelrad, a beer garden, they went to her apartment, where he met Pumpkin, her calico cat. That’s when he asked if she would join him in New Zealand for his residency. He then broke it to her that his mother’s name was also Andrea (she laughed it off).

Although Dr. Allen told him that evening that she wanted to take things slow because she had ended a serious relationship a few months earlier, they soon began seeing each other daily. The first dish he cooked for her was a cauliflower adobo, as she was a vegetarian at the time and her father is Filipino. (Her mother is Mexican American.)

One weekend in May 2022, she made the impromptu decision to move with Pumpkin into his apartment in Houston’s medical district. They became engaged in November.

“In the next month, before moving to New Zealand, I started wedding planning,” Dr. Allen said, and she continued to plan once they were in South Auckland. Dr. Vener worked as a psychiatrist in the emergency room at Middlemore Hospital, and she taught a remote art education class weekly — at 3 a.m. — at the University of Houston. During their first week there, they learned he had matched into a fellowship program at Memorial Sloan Kettering. In June, they moved their belongings from storage to New York. Dr. Allen now works as a research analyst focusing on art education at Metis Associates, a consulting firm, and as an adjunct professor of art education at the City College of New York.

On Jan. 20, Rabbi Will Hall, a high school friend of the groom’s, officiated at the Century Hall, a wedding venue in Fort Worth, before 120 guests. They did the hora and danced to Mexican cumbia music at the reception. They also hosted a Western-themed welcome party the night before at Reata, a Southwestern restaurant downtown.

“Now I’m steering where we go next,” she said, to which he wholeheartedly agreed: “I dragged her across the planet twice.”

A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 4, 2024, Section ST, Page 15 of the New York edition with the headline: Ready for Launch: Houston to New Zealand. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/02/style/daniel-vener-andrea-allen.html

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5485840&forum_id=2).#47364963)

Dr. Allen, barely 5-foot-5, then stood on her tiptoes to reach Dr. Vener, a foot taller.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5485840&forum_id=2).#47365020)

Rabbi Will Hall, a high school friend of the groom’s, officiated at the Century Hall,

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5485840&forum_id=2).#47365025)

That chick is average and if she opened up tinder probably has a million options. However she selected the 6’5 ugmo for his HEIGHT alone and she can’t stop talking about it! Height is everything!

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5485840&forum_id=2).#47365051)

As they headed to their cars around midnight, Dr. Vener, who rarely stayed up past 10:30, asked if he could kiss her.

“Yes,” she said, on the condition that they stepped away from the middle of the road. Dr. Allen, barely 5-foot-5, then stood on her tiptoes to reach Dr. Vener, a foot taller.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5485840&forum_id=2).#47365070)