SUNDAY,MAY 16, 2010
OnLove
Jen Psaki & Gregory Mecher
ELEVEN HEARTS PHOTOGRAPHY
Ann Yom & David Steel
Ann Yom, 37, is a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deputy director. David Steel, 41, works in AIG’s strategic planning division. They will live in Washington.
Wedding date: April 10. Location: Tabard Inn. Guests: 50.
How they met: Ann and David were hanging out separately with friends at the Big Hunt one night in November 1999, when Ann noticed David’s glasses across the room. She thought he was really hot, she says, and approached him. A couple of days later they met for lunch at Union Station.
The proposal: Last November, 10 years after they first met, Ann traveled to New York to spend the weekend with David, who was living and working in that city. David planned to pop the question outdoors after lunch but it was too rainy. So he suggested they go to the observation deck atop his office building, which had terrific panoramic views of the city. As they were looking over the city, David asked for Ann’s hand.
The wedding: After their official ceremony, they dressed up in traditional Korean garb to honor Ann’s heritage. It included a lot of bowing, David jokes. And his parents, who have been married for more than 50 years, imparted helpful advice, such as not to rely solely on your partner to make yourself happy.
Honeymoon: A future trip to Washington state for hiking and then a trip to Bali.
— Kathleen Hom
by Ellen McCarthy
The day Jen Psaki met Greg-
ory Mecher, she was focused on another man. Psaki was six weeks into a
new communications gig with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Rahm Emanuel, then chair- man of the DCCC, was trav- eling to Philadelphia to speak at an event where she would be handling the media. As Psaki, a Luddite, scram- bled to set up a Web video for Emanuel, a call came on her cellphone — the chairman’s driver was lost and needed di- rections. “And I have no sense of di-
rection. I didn’t know even where we were, but I was like ‘Oh, I think you take a left,’ ” recalls Psaki, now 31. Mecher, a deputy finance di-
rector at the DCCC who reg- ularly traveled in “a very small entourage” with Emanuel, was on the other end of the line that January 2006 day, taking instructions from Psaki that led them even further afield. Finally they reached the event site, and once Mecher moved on from thinking, “Why did she get us lost?” he thought: “She’s cute.” Psaki, meanwhile, was just
glad “he wasn’t visibly upset” by her misdirection. And com- pared with Emanuel, who was dropping four-letter words from the moment he walked in the door, Mecher “seemed like the nice, calm person.” The two both had heavy
travel schedules, but occasion- ally found themselves at DCCC headquarters at the same time. Mecher would make a point of regularly trying to walk by Psaki’s desk, which was 20 feet from his own. “But when she’s at work,
she’s very focused — it’s like tunnel vision,” says Mecher, 33. “Whenever I would do it, she had the headset on, talk- ing on the phone, the Black- Berry she was typing on and the actual computer in front of her where she was talking to someone else . . . so there was no way to accidentally get her attention.” Psaki, who grew up in Con-
FOTOBRICENO
Katharine Butler & Jonathan Burton
Katharine Butler, 28, is an elementary school teacher. Jonathan Burton, 29, is a real estate agent. They live in Rockville.
Wedding date: April 17.
Location: Holy Trinity Catholic Church and St. Regis Hotel in Washington.
Guests: 190.
How they met: In fall 2008, Katie found Jonathan’s profile on
Match.com and “winked” at him because she liked his picture. They started trading e-mails and talking on the phone, and discovered they had a lot of friends in common. They should’ve known each other, Katie says, because they grew up in close proximity. After two weeks of chatting, they planned a lunch in Bethesda and bonded over an embarrassing story about a mutual friend.
The proposal: Katie and Jonathan planned a trip to Europe last June. Jonathan told her he knew that popping the question in Europe would be perfect, but he wasn’t going to do it. He wanted to propose, just not on vacation. This irked Katie. So while dining in Athens during the trip, she decided to spontaneously propose to Jonathan. He accepted but didn’t think she was serious. To seal the deal, he asked for her hand later that evening.
The wedding: Katie wanted to wed in her family’s church, and they loved the architecture and layout of the St. Regis ballroom. They had a fun photo booth set up for guests, and the florist came up with a different flower arrangement that included daisies hanging from the ceiling.
Honeymoon: A summer trip to St. Lucia.
— Kathleen Hom
necticut and got into politics after signing up for a Demo- cratic campaign program that led to a two-year post-college stint in Iowa, concentrated largely on her job. But when she heard other women at the office mention Mecher’s at- tractiveness, she’d perk up — and get a little jealous. After a shared cab ride one night and some flirting at 18th Amendment bar on Capitol Hill another evening, Mecher made up his mind to ask for a date. “I actually got really ner- vous,” he recalls. “Which was really weird. I was 30 years old. I’ve asked a few girls out before. I’ve never been ner- vous about it in my life.” The last Friday in Septem-
ber, he sent Psaki an e-mail asking her to dinner. She quickly wrote back saying yes. The next Monday they met in the elevator so their col- leagues wouldn’t see them leave together — “we thought we were so slick,” Psaki says. At Logan Tavern they talked about their parents and sib- lings and shared high school swimming careers. And the next weekend they went out again. The two tried to keep their romance out of the office gossip mills but weren’t wor- ried about intra-office dating awkwardness: The November 2006 elections were coming soon, and they’d both be mov- ing on.
By December, they were ex- clusive and planning a trip to Costa Rica. “I think from the beginning we just felt very comfortable,” she says. “We got along very well, and our personalities meshed very well.”
But they also knew a hurdle was on the horizon. “It was this very strange time when the jobs were ending, and I knew Jen was looking to go on a presidential [campaign]. That was never a question,” Mecher says. In early February, Psaki got a job offer from the Obama campaign and was asked to move to Chicago the following week. The two decided to try to keep dating long distance,
IT’S A PARTY: Greg Mecher and Jen Psaki were married at Woodlawn, an estate in Southern Maryland.
but they “didn’t really know how it would go,” Mecher recalls. For the next seven months their relationship was conducted via BlackBerries, cellphones and twice-monthly visits Mecher made to Chicago. (He’d
just
racked up enough frequent flier miles on ATA Airlines for a trip to Hawaii when the airline folded.) In December 2007, the cam-
paign ramped up and Psaki gave up her apartment in Chicago to travel full-time with Obama. For the next 11 months she would live, more or less, on a plane, stopping sometimes in five states a day and carting her belongings around in a giant suitcase. (The day it was temporarily lost in Ne- vada was a bad one.) Psaki would call when she could, but that was often 1 or 2 a.m., and if Mecher was able to catch up with her on a stop in New Hampshire or Ohio, it was usually just for a day. “That was the worst time of the whole thing,” says Mecher, who now works as chief of staff for Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-Ohio). “The longest we went without seeing each other was 36 days,” he says. “And I counted. And it was long. And it was hard.” But neither of them ever hint-
ed at wanting out. “We actually got a lot stronger,” says Mecher, who adds that it helped enor- mously that they’re in the same industry and he’d worked on a presidential campaign four years earlier for John Kerry. “And you know campaigns are
final — that’s the thing about them,” Psaki says. On Nov. 4 Mecher flew to Chi-
cago to be with Psaki in Grant Park on election night. They went to sleep that night victorious — and together. (Unfortunately, Psaki had to work a 7 a.m. press pool at the Obamas’ home the next morning. “That was a killer because I’d had the light at the end of the tunnel and it was there. And then it was over, and I was like, ‘Okay, whole new deal! I get to see her all the time!’ Wait — you have to go where?”) But the next week Psaki, who now works as deputy communi- cations director at the White House, was back in D.C. At the end of November, Mecher threw her a surprise birthday party with all her old friends — “which was great,” she recalls, “because I hadn’t seen anybody in like two years.” They moved into an Adams Morgan apartment, set up house
as adults and fell into a saner, sweeter routine. “Within two weeks it was like she’d never been gone,” he says. In March 2009, Mecher pro- posed at home on a Wednesday night. The next day he got a call from Emanuel, who likes to take credit for the relationship. “Only Rahm can congratulate you with several f-bombs,” Mecher says. On May 8 they were married at
Woodlawn, a stately property on a tributary of the Potomac River in Southern Maryland. More than 220 guests, including White
House press secretary Robert Gibbs, speechwriter Jon Favreau, and television journalists David Shuster and Jake Tapper, watched as the two exchanged vows under the canopy of a mul- berry tree before adjourning to a reception where they were enter- tained by an ’80s rock band, Judo Chop. (Emanuel was invited but had another obligation.) Mecher’s brother, Dan, sere- naded the couple as they danced, a moment that confirmed what Mecher had long suspected: That despite its challenges, their rela-
tionship was always leading to this. “It may seem cliche, but I just kind of knew,” he says. “We got to- gether and got along very well and it just sort of worked. And it was good.”
mccarthye@washpost.com
ON WASHINGTONPOST.COM To
view a gallery of photos from
Jen Psaki and Gregory Mecher’s wedding, or to read more details about their big day, visit www.
washingtonpost.com/onlove.
Engagements | Weddings | Anniversaries
To place an announcement: email:
weddings@washpost.com phone: 202-334-5736 fax: 202-334-5888
——Engagements——
——Anniversaries——
Deyana Lotfy Rizkalla& Alexander E. O. Schultes
—October 2010—
Cavanaugh Golden Anniversary
—May 14, 2010—
KLMNO
ONLOVE ONLINE
• Join us at
www.washingtonpost.com/onlove where you’ll find videos, photos, advice and polls.
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• Want to be featured in OnLove? E-mail
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E11
• Fed up with being a single lady? Michelle R. Callahan, Ph.D., offers advice and discusses her book “Ms. Typed: Stop Sabotaging Your Relationships and Find Dating Success” on April 17 at 1 p.m. at
washingtonpost.com/onlove.
‘There was no way to accidentally get her attention’
PHOTOS BY BILL O’LEARY/THE WASHINGTON POST
FUN TOUCHES: The tables
were named after the couple’s favorite restaurants. Below, guests’ table assignments were strung along a path.
Deyana L. Rizkalla and Alexander E. O. Schultes
Mr. and Mrs. Lotfy Rizkalla of Miami, Florida are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter,Deyana Lotfy Rizkalla to Alexander Ernst Otto Schultes, son of Mr. and Mrs. Ernst U. A. Schultes of Great Falls, Virginia and Naples, Florida.
Deyana is a 2005 graduate of Florida International University with a bache- lor’s degree in Accounting. She also holds a masters degree in Accounting from Florida International and is cur- rently employed as the lead accoun- tant withWorld Fuel Services (Fortune 500) in Doral, Florida.
Alex is a 1999 graduate of Episcopal High School, Alexandria, Virginia and a 2003 graduate of Brown University with a bachelor’s degree in Interna- tional Relations. He obtained his mas- ter’s degree in International Adminis- tration in 2008 from the University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida. He is employed as an Assistant Director of Student Recruiting for the University of Miami School of Law and serves as Head Coach of the men's lacrosse team.
Deyana and Alex are to be married on October 23, 2010 in South Florida.
Mr. and Mrs. Francis Xavier Cavanaugh
Mr. and Mrs. Francis Xavier Cavanaugh celebrate the 50th anniversary of their blessed marriage. Carol McDermott and Frank Cavanaugh exchanged vows at St. Francis Xavier Church in Washington D.C. on a beautiful spring day and have since lived a life dedicated to service and the rearing of their three children, Brian, Keith and Christine, in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Carol has been a homemaker, caring for friends and teaching her children through her charity, kindness, humility and cheerful perseverance. Frank served for 32 years as an economist in the US Treasury Department and, subsequently, established the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, where he served for 7 years as it's first Executive Director.
Carol and Frank, now retired, remain active in charitable projects and writing, respectively, and enjoy their eight grandchildren, Chloe, Courtney, Caitlin and Ciara Cavanaugh of Mendham, New Jersey; Nicole and Max Werking of Boca Raton, Florida; and Jack and Madi Cavanaugh of Bel Air, Maryland. Your children wish to take this occasion to congratulate you both on lives well spent and to thank you for the wonderful example of mutual love and support you have bestowed upon us.The family looks forward to celebrating this Golden Anniversary this summer in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
Declare Your Love!
Announce your Engagement,Wedding or Anniversary in The Washington Post’s Sunday Arts & Style Section. (Birthdays, Graduations & other Special Events have moved to Thursdays.) You may provide text and photos. Color is available. Many packages include keepsake plaques of your announcement.
To place an order and for more information, including rates: Contact Alexa McMahon at:
weddings@washpost.com Or call 202.334.5736, toll free 877.POST.WED, fax 202.334.7188
All materials must be received by Monday at 1 p.m.
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