Emorie Broemel, a senior director of presidency relations at ViacomCBS, by no means imagined she would meet her future husband on the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. As a Democrat, it was one of many final locations she anticipated to search out love.
“I joke that it’s my secret shame,” she mentioned. She was additionally too consumed by her work on the time to even take into account the likelihood that she would possibly make a romantic connection. “Conventions for me are not fun at all,” she mentioned. “They’re very stressful. I’m like doing events and running around.”
But for Philip Swartzfager II, an operations volunteer on the July conference, politics have been the furthest factor from his thoughts when he was launched to Ms. Broemel by Sarah Hudson, a mutual pal. Instead, he was shocked and a bit regretful. Ms. Hudson had truly been attempting to set the 2 of them up for months and he wished they’d related sooner.
It was not a really perfect surroundings for a primary date, Mr. Swartzfager mentioned, as a result of they every had social obligations all through the night. But after drinks, a live performance efficiency by the nation singer-songwriter Pat Green and a cease on the former House speaker John Boehner’s warehouse celebration — one of many conference’s marquee gatherings — they’d gotten sufficient time collectively for Mr. Swartzfager, 39, to really feel assured he’d met somebody particular. “I knew when we left the party,” he mentioned. “I was like, ‘I’ve got to get her to commit to another date.’”
It was about two weeks later after they have been in a position to see every collectively once more as a result of Ms. Broemel, 36, needed to journey, with solely two days of relaxation at house in Washington in between, to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. To preserve himself on her radar, Mr. Swartzfager, a supervisor of presidency relations at PayPal, despatched Ms. Broemel an “encouraging text message so she didn’t forget me.”
The message, Ms. Broemel mentioned, was pointless: “I knew that I wanted to see Phil again.” Despite being exhausted from the back-to-back conventions, she agreed to satisfy up with Mr. Swartzfager for drinks on the Spanish restaurant Jaleo, only a few days after returning to the capital.
Within months, they have been courting severely and in August 2017, on a visit to Rosemary Beach, Fla., unplugged from work and totally relaxed for the primary time since they met, the couple realized that their relationship was on its technique to turning into everlasting. “That was kind of a crystallizing trip where I think we both knew that we wanted and that we would at some point marry,” Ms. Broemel mentioned.
Further affirmation got here in 2020 throughout the Covid-19 pandemic after they quarantined collectively. “Although I knew we would get engaged, I knew we would be married, it was a very comforting experience to know that you can get along with somebody so well that you can weather working from home together,” Mr. Swartzfager mentioned.
He deliberate to suggest in Baltimore, after a meal at Charleston, one among their favourite eating places. But that fell by way of due to new public well being guidelines, so Mr. Swartzfager requested Ms. Broemel to marry him at their Capitol Hill condo in December.
They have been married April 17 earlier than eight friends at Christ Church Cathedral in Nashville, the place the bride grew up. The Rev. Anne Stevenson, Ms. Broemel’s childhood priest, got here out of retirement to carry out the Episcopal ceremony.
