You guys, I am getting in a cab to get on a plane to fly to New York to go to my wedding. How bananas is that? People keep asking me if I'm nervous and I'm really not. As a friend observed recently, "people who get nervous about weddings have never been through an election day." Other than the surreal quality, I'm pretty pumped and I wanted to take a moment to share with you fives ways in which planning a wedding is a lot like running a campaign.
1) People will surprise you both good and bad. The same way that a candidate's wealthy friend might never re-up his 50 dollar donation, but the parents of the kid who babysat your candidate in high school might randomly max out. People will come through for you (and disappoint you) in unexpected ways for your wedding. Shout out to my friend from the Edwards campaign and his awesome wife who are flying out from Wisconsin to join us! (And un-shout out to the person who texted me last "when is it again?")
2) Unsolicited opinions. Need I even take you through this one? Oh you volunteered for McGovern? Please tell me how we need yard signs. Oh you got married in 1972? Please tell me about people will be upset there's no cake cutting.
3) Its starts impossibly early. There are people hiring field staff for exploratory work in Iowa for 2020 presidential campaigns! Hello! We haven't even had midterm PRIMARIES yet. Meanwhile when Future Mr. CampaignSick and I started looking at venues NINE MONTHS AGO (no I'm not pregnant) people were like "oh you're too late. We're already booked into 2018." Calm down everybody.
4) The closer you get, the less is in your control. One of the reasons I'm not nervous is because I planned. Just like you work backwards from election so by the time you get there the wheels are turning on their own, I made a list of everything we needed for the wedding a few months ago and have been slowly checking items off. I know I did everything I could to put together a great event so barring a disappearing act on the part of my future husband (which, is not going to happen but if it did I hope you'd all come visit me in prison) the worst that can happen really isn't that bad.
5) There's a little bit of imposter syndrome. I keep texting my Maid of Honor "are you sure I'm getting married this weekend?" and she for her part has been answering "I don't know, that seems kind of weird." Similar feeling as to when you are 23 and managing 200 volunteers or managing a race that's getting national attention. Don't get me wrong, I know I am going to be awesome at both, but they are such grown up seeming activities that I need to pinch myself to make sure this is really happening.
Thank you for being a part of my life this week and every week! (PS. Read this adorable article I found while looking for a picture to use with this post.)
Campaign Love and Mine!
-Nancy
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