Havana Rose Liu’s Parents: Meet David Liu and Carley Roney, The Knot Cofounders

Havana Rose Liu has become a familiar face to film audiences through projects including No Exit, The Sky Is Everywhere and Bottoms. But while her career has developed in entertainment, her parents made their names in a different field.

Her father, David Liu, and mother, Carley Roney, are entrepreneurs best known as cofounders of The Knot, the wedding planning business that became a major name in digital media.

Their story began at New York University and eventually led to a company built around helping couples organise one of the biggest events of their lives. Along the way, they worked as both spouses and business partners, navigating the pressures that come with sharing a household and a professional venture.

Havana’s family background offers an interesting contrast to her acting career. Her parents built products and media brands for consumers, while she has pursued characters, performances and storytelling on screen.

Here is what to know about Havana Rose Liu’s parents and the business they helped create.

Her Parents Are David Liu and Carley Roney

David Liu and Carley Roney are the parents of actress Havana Rose Liu.

Both are associated with the early development of The Knot, a business created during the rise of consumer internet services in the 1990s.

Although discussions about Havana’s family often focus on her parents’ commercial success, their careers began with creative and production interests. Their backgrounds help explain how they moved into a company that combined useful information, visual presentation and digital tools.

They did not come from the traditional Hollywood route of acting, directing or producing feature films.

Instead, their public professional story centres on entrepreneurship and building a service for an audience. That distinction gives Havana’s family history its own character, rather than fitting the usual description of an actor raised by entertainment industry parents.

They Met at New York University

David and Carley’s connection began at New York University, where both attended the Tisch School of the Arts.

An NYU account of their entrepreneurial journey identifies David as a 1987 Tisch graduate and Carley as a graduate with degrees from 1990 and 1994.

Their university background places the beginning of their story in a creative environment. Long before wedding planning became their best-known business, they were connected through a school associated with film, performance and other artistic disciplines.

Years later, they returned to NYU to discuss their experiences with aspiring founders.

That return offered a full-circle moment: two former students explaining how an idea became a company, and what they learned while building it together.

They Married Before Starting The Knot

David and Carley married in 1993, several years before founding The Knot.

Their relationship therefore preceded the business that would make them widely known. Once they became cofounders, their partnership took on an additional layer.

Marriage and running a company involve different responsibilities, even when the same two people share both. A business requires decisions about money, staff, products and growth, while a relationship has its own needs and pressures.

Their story has attracted interest partly because those responsibilities overlapped.

It would be too simple to say that sharing an entrepreneurial outlook explains the success of their marriage. What is clear is that they worked together through major stages of the company’s development and publicly discussed the challenges of that arrangement.

The Knot Had Four Cofounders

Although David and Carley are often described as the couple behind The Knot, they did not establish it alone.

The company’s official history names David Liu, Carley Roney, Rob Fassino and Michael Wolfson as its founders.

The Knot Inc. was founded in 1996. The brand initially appeared through AOL before TheKnot.com developed as its own online destination.

That sequence reflects the internet environment of the time. Many consumers were still discovering online services through large portals, rather than going directly to the kinds of specialised websites familiar today.

The four founders saw an opportunity to bring wedding information into that developing space.

Recognising all four also gives a more accurate account of the company’s beginnings than presenting it solely as a husband-and-wife project.

What Made the Business Useful?

Wedding planning brings together many decisions that couples may never have made before.

There are venues to compare, suppliers to contact, budgets to manage and questions about how the day should look and feel. A service that organises those decisions can become valuable at a particularly busy point in someone’s life.

The Knot developed around that practical need.

Its broader appeal also came from presentation. Wedding planning is both logistical and personal, so information has to be useful without losing the excitement of the occasion.

That combination helps explain why the business belonged as much to media as to planning. Couples needed answers, but they also wanted ideas and inspiration.

For Havana’s parents, the opportunity involved understanding an audience and designing a service around it.

David Worked in Digital Production

Before The Knot, David already had experience in digital production.

Company filings identify him as a cofounder of RunTime Inc., a CD-ROM development business, where he served as director of production from 1993 to 1996.

That detail places his career within an earlier stage of interactive media. Before websites became the default destination for information and entertainment, CD-ROM products offered another way to combine content, images and user interaction.

His move into an internet business was therefore connected to work he had already been doing.

It was a change in platform, but it also drew on production experience and an understanding of how people engage with digital material.

Carley Was a Business Partner From the Start

Carley’s role should not be reduced to being the wife of a founder.

She was a cofounder herself and had worked with David before The Knot. Corporate filings identify her as a cofounder and former president of RunTime.

She later became chief content officer at The Knot, a position associated with the editorial material and information that helped define the brand.

That work mattered because a planning service needs more than software or a recognisable name. It also needs content that readers find relevant, understandable and trustworthy.

Carley’s career shows that the company was built through complementary responsibilities.

David’s executive and production background was one part of the story. Her leadership and content work were another.

The Business Grew Into XO Group

The company later expanded beyond its original wedding focus and became known as XO Group.

Its wider identity included services and media associated with other stages of family life. That development reflected an effort to build relationships with consumers beyond a single event.

David and Carley remained closely associated with the business through years of growth.

In December 2014, the company announced that they were completing a transition out of their day-to-day management roles. The announcement described their long involvement in developing its consumer brands.

This is an important distinction when describing them today: being founders does not automatically mean they continue to run the business in the same roles.

Their historical contribution can be recognised without assuming their responsibilities have remained unchanged.

Working Together Came With Pressure

David has spoken about the unusually intense experience of building a company with a spouse.

His comments described the excitement of reaching major milestones together, along with the strain of facing difficult periods as a couple.

That account makes their business story more relatable. Success does not remove uncertainty, and sharing a professional venture can make its problems difficult to leave behind at the end of the day.

It also means achievements can carry a personal significance beyond an ordinary working relationship.

For readers interested in Havana’s parents, this part of their history adds context to the company names and job titles. Their careers involved a long-running working partnership, rather than a single successful idea.

Havana Chose a Different Creative Career

Havana’s professional path has taken her toward acting.

Her projects have included The Chair, Mayday, The Sky Is Everywhere and the thriller No Exit. Her performance as Isabel in Bottoms introduced her to more viewers through a very different style of film.

Those roles place her work in a separate field from her parents’ wedding and lifestyle business.

There are broad connections between entrepreneurship and acting, such as communication and understanding an audience. However, it would be speculative to claim exactly how her parents’ careers shaped her choices without her own account.

What can be said is that the family includes distinct forms of creative work.

David and Carley are known for building a digital business. Havana is developing a body of performances, with each role giving audiences another opportunity to assess her individual work.

A Family With Different Public Careers

Interest in Havana Rose Liu’s parents is understandable as more people discover her films.

David Liu and Carley Roney have a substantial professional history of their own, from their NYU connection and early digital production work to helping establish The Knot.

Their story also shows why brief descriptions can leave important details out. The business had four founders, both spouses held meaningful roles, and their responsibilities changed over time.

Havana’s career adds another chapter to that family background. Her parents helped build an influential consumer brand, while she is finding her place through the characters she brings to the screen.