Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

‘We Fell In Love Before We’d Even Really Held Hands’: Mandy Moore Met Her Jewish Fiancé On Instagram

It was September 2015 and Amanda Leigh Moore was sad. Her career was stalled. She was separating from her husband Ryan Adams, who would later come out with an album about their relationship entitled, “Prisoner.” Her Instagram was mostly pictures of small animals and humorous Ryan Gosling memes referencing astrology.

But! There was a song that was inside her soul. It was not one that she’d tried to write over and over again. It was one by Dawes, a folk rock band fronted by Taylor Goldsmith, with his brother Griffin Goldsmith on drums.

Musically talented siblings with a precious metal in their last name joining together to create music in the enduring style of Joni Mitchel?

Jews.

Moore posted this Instagram after attending a Dawes show in San Francisco:

? @dawestheband

A post shared by Mandy Moore (@mandymooremm) on

Like God, the internet works in mysterious ways. Soon, the post reached Dawes frontman Taylor Goldsmith. “Somehow, Taylor saw it and sent a note to me,” Moore told People Magazine. “We spent hours FaceTiming each other,” she said. “We fell in love before we’d even really held hands or kissed or anything. It was great.”

This. This is us. This is Nicholas Sparks if it was ever happy instead of a cancer-ridden, Alzheimers-y, arson-fest. This, surely is the “stupid cupid” Moore sang of so many years ago as the mean but talented cheerleader in “The Princess Diaries.”

“We started emailing back and forth, then we went on a date and the rest is history,” she said of her relationship with Goldsmith. “Thanks Instagram, for helping me meet my fiancé!”

Truly, if this relationship is a huge PR stunt by Instagram, we will be impressed, not angry.

Check out this evolution

Moore slowly integrates Goldsmith in with her other interests

Slowly but surely converting the cat tolerant into cat lovers ????

A post shared by Mandy Moore (@mandymooremm) on

Moore triumphs:

New catlover ?? #catsofinstagram

A post shared by Mandy Moore (@mandymooremm) on

Moore and Goldsmith take a terrifyingly scenic vacation to Maine:

Pajamas in the snow #Maine ? by @threelilymama

A post shared by Mandy Moore (@mandymooremm) on

Ugh, we get it, we get it

So proud of this guy and the whole band for an absolutely electric hometown show last night. ⚡️???

A post shared by Mandy Moore (@mandymooremm) on

Moore gets into Phillip Roth (unrelated but exciting)

Sundaze (in between cleaning and packing)…. ☕️??

A post shared by Mandy Moore (@mandymooremm) on

Goldsmith and Moore establish themselves as a power couple:

The power couple celebrates two years of Goldsmith’s masculinity not being threatened by Moore’s height:

The best 2 years. Never not smiling with you, T. ❤️????

A post shared by Mandy Moore (@mandymooremm) on

ENGAGED:

#FBF to Emmy Sunday when this guy flew across the country the morning of just to share the day with me. ????

A post shared by Mandy Moore (@mandymooremm) on

Mazal, Mandy and Taylor! Thank you for a love story worthy of our times, and no thank you for inspiring Jewish mothers to see Instagram as a new dating medium.

Jenny Singer is a writer for the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.