'There was no way to accidentally get her attention'

As Psaki, a Luddite, scrambled to set up a Web video for Emanuel, a call came on her cellphone -- the chairman's driver was lost and needed directions.

"And I have no sense of direction. 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 director at the DCCC who regularly 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 compared 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 occasionally 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, talking on the phone, the BlackBerry 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 Connecticut and got into politics after signing up for a Democratic 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 attractiveness, 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 nervous," he recalls. "Which was really weird. I was 30 years old. I've asked a few girls out before. I've never been nervous about it in my life."

The last Friday in September, 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 colleagues wouldn't see them leave together -- "we thought we were so slick," Psaki says.

At Logan Tavern they talked about their parents and siblings 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 worried about intra-office dating awkwardness: The November 2006 elections were coming soon, and they'd both be moving on.

By December, they were exclusive 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, 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 campaign 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 Nevada 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 hinted at wanting out. "We actually got a lot stronger," says Mecher, who adds that it helped enormously 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 Chicago 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 communications 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 proposed 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 mulberry tree before adjourning to a reception where they were entertained by an '80s rock band, Judo Chop. (Emanuel was invited but had another obligation.)

Mecher's brother, Dan, serenaded the couple as they danced, a moment that confirmed what Mecher had long suspected: That despite its challenges, their relationship was always leading to this.

"It may seem cliche, but I just kind of knew," he says. "We got together and got along very well and it just sort of worked. And it was good."