Growing up in the small, predominantly white town of Wayzata, Minnesota, Adrienne Willis had big dreams of attending Boston University with her friends from home.
After undergrad, she wanted to head to Harvard Business School. Her mother, a native of Cordele, Georgia, had other plans.
“My parents were very firm and said you can go anywhere you want, but our money is going to Spelman,” she remembered, calling it “the best decision that my parents made for me.”
Two weeks before Homecoming 2024, the couple shared their story over a video chat. Lorenz talks about the pair’s conversation at Homecoming six years prior, which made their relationship official.t her husband, Lorenz Willis. On paper, it sounds like a quintessential Black college love story: Spelman girl meets Morehouse boy, and they fall for each other.
That’s not the way love goes.
Two weeks before Homecoming 2024, the couple shared their story with the AJC over a video chat. Lorenz talked about the pair’s conversation at Homecoming six years prior, which made their relationship official.
“I told her, ‘Look, better stop playing,’” he said. “I’ve been chasing you for 30 years.”
According to a 2024 survey from wedding website The Knot, 15% of nearly 10,000 respondents met their spouses in college, grad school or further studies. Like the Willises, other SpelHouse couples took winding roads toward each other’s embrace, and whether it was rekindling an old flame or meeting for the first time, Homecoming served as their backdrop.
When Lorenz met Adrienne
The year was 1986.
Adrienne Willis was an economics major. Lorenz Willis was trying to figure things out. He was the tall kid from Los Angeles who had hoop dreams of trying out for the basketball team at Morehouse. Ultimately, he settled on studying psychology.
Both students were in serious relationships at the time. Adrienne had a boyfriend back in Minnesota. Lorenz had a girlfriend at home, making him his friends’ go-to wingman.
Lorenz’s roommate met Adrienne and her friend at the library, and the girls would later be invited to the guys’ dorm room, where Adrienne saw a picture of Lorenz. She commented on his handsomeness but there was, however, a deterrent.
“He was cute, but you see this lingerie on the wall,” alluding to a garment Lorenz hung as a sign of his commitment to his hometown sweetheart.
“I’m like, he’s out. There’s no way I would ever talk to him.”
That changed thanks to an assist from Dr. Dre. Before N.W.A.’s debut, the producer was a member of the World Class Wreckin’ Crew, a group of musicians in Los Angeles. Lorenz had copies of Dr. Dre’s mixed cassette tapes, which featured Run-DMC, Parliament-Funkadelic, Zapp, and the 2 Live Crew.
He and his roommate invited the girls to a dorm room party and played Dr. Dre’s latest mixtape. Adrienne, who loved to dance, found a dance partner in Lorenz and they remember dancing together at every Spelman and Morehouse party before graduating in 1990.
“Throughout that time that we were in school, we had chemistry. We liked each other. We smiled at each other,” Lorenz Willis said. “She had a boyfriend. I had a girlfriend, so there were no shenanigans.”
In 1992, Lorenz was back in Los Angeles, but returned to Atlanta for homecoming. The two saw each other, but did not have contact after Adrienne informed him she was engaged to be married.
Ten years later, the two attended a dinner with mutual friends from Morehouse and Spelman in L.A. Both were married to other people. Still, there was a spark.
“Every time I looked down the table in her direction she was looking directly back at me,” Lorenz Willis said. “When dinner was over we all had drinks at the bar. Our conversation and chemistry was still strong.”
Then, there was the holiday card incident.
In 2007, Lorenz’s mother received a Christmas card featuring a photo of a woman and young boy she didn’t know. Furious, she called her son, thinking he was hiding a family from his parents. Lorenz recognized the image as Adrienne and her son. “I did get the message though — Adrienne was now divorced but I was still married then,” he said.
Adrienne and Lorenz went another 10 years without seeing or speaking to each other.
That changed in 2017 when Lorenz, a divorced father of two, found himself standing outside Spelman’s bookstore during homecoming. Adrienne spotted him and they spoke, feelings still there.
Lorenz almost didn’t go to homecoming in 2018. He hadn’t stopped thinking about Adrienne. His friends pushed him to tell her. He did, in the downtown Courtyard Marriott parking lot, after homecoming parties in Buckhead.
“I think there’s potential for love, and if you are with it then let’s figure it out,” he remembered saying, adding that he would have been OK with “no.” He didn’t want to mess things up.
“I was like, ‘OK, well, I’m not leaving. We’re going to talk about this. We’re going to make this happen,” she replied.
Nearly 40 years after meeting, Lorenz proposed to Adrienne the day after Valentine’s Day in 2022. They married in Atlanta Sept. 29, 2023. The pair, now in their mid-50s, splits time between Mableton and Los Angeles.
When Paul met Chelsea
Credit: Courtesy
Credit: Courtesy
In 2010, Decatur native Chelsea Jordan, now 30, arrived on Spelman’s campus with a plan that didn’t involve finding a husband. However, she vividly remembers friends on the hunt for theirs.
“I was like, I can find cheaper ways to find a husband than $45,000 a year,” she said.
Her focus was pursuing a degree in public health. After undergrad, her five-year plan was to be a rich, single auntie with a puppy, who traveled the world.
Seven years before Chelsea got to Spelman, Philadelphia native Paul Jordan, now 38, wondered about possibly meeting his future wife in college, he said.
His parents met at a predominantly white institution and were still together after more than 50 years.
Jordan had gone from a predominantly white Pennsylvania high school to Morehouse College, which he thought would increase his odds. “I was thinking, OK, you come to college, yes, you get your education, but you do find your wife, and it didn’t happen,” he remembered.
Chelsea and Paul’s luck changed at Homecoming 2015.
Paul had attended annually since graduating in 2008. It was Chelsea’s first homecoming as a graduate since tossing her cap in 2014.
The pair met through mutual friends. Chelsea was in grad school at Emory University, and Paul was working as a tech consultant. They exchanged LinkedIn info, but Paul also suggested connecting on Snapchat because his niece had just familiarized him with the app.
“At this point, I’m like, how old is this man? Why is someone teaching you how to use Snapchat,” she joked.
The pair didn’t speak for another year until reconnecting ... on Snapchat. DMs led to a Homecoming connection in 2016 when they met for a party at Georgia Aquarium.
For almost everyone there, the party was a bust. The DJ couldn’t play music loud because it would disturb the fish. Paul saw a silver lining. “That’s when we started talking to each other and talked the entire time,” Paul Jordan said.
Paul got Chelsea’s number. Their first date was at Torched Hop Brewing Company. They joke that Paul tried to kill her by introducing her to stout beer. Their age gap turned out to be nothing but a number.
“A lot of my Spelman sisters would agree that it has worked out better for us to connect with our Morehouse brothers after we are out of school,” Chelsea said
Paul proposed to Chelsea the day after Thanksgiving in 2022. They were married May 4 and live together in Vinings.
Second chances
Credit: Courtesy
Credit: Courtesy
It’s no surprise both couples get in their feelings this time of year.
The Willises and Jordans found different paths to each other, yet there was always one constant: Homecoming. And HBCU Homecomings hit differently.
The vibe is more of a Black family reunion than a Super Bowl party. The crowd spans generations. There’s a sweeping sense of Black community. It’s an environment that inspires amorous connections. The lines between friends and strangers blur.
“I feel like if it weren’t for that sort of close-knitness to begin with, there wouldn’t be an us,” Paul Jordan said.
Both couples said they’ve met other SpelHouse couples, with different stories. Some met in school, others connected years later.
Adrienne Willis said it’s OK to let life happen. She and Lorenz have lost parents, juggled their blended family and powered through a long-distance relationship. “Give yourself a second chance,” she said, “because sometimes we’re so wounded we just don’t even go down that path.”
Thanks to homecoming, their family and others will never have to wonder.
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