Nicole Woods knew Molly and I were on a date before we did.
It was late on a Friday afternoon when we walked into Swiss & Madison for a drink. Nicole, the owner, greeted us and observed that we must be out for an early Valentine’s dinner.
We awkwardly laughed it off. At the time, Molly was the program manager at the Small Business Development Center, where I worked as a consultant. Technically, she was my supervisor. We’d developed a friendship through work, and a few after-hours drinks at the OMG office eventually led us to venture outside those walls.
One drink became another. Business conversation became personal. Eventually, we ordered dinner.
“Is this a date?” Molly finally asked.
“I don’t think it was,” I told her, laughing. “But it certainly has turned into one.”
She reminded me that she needed to know because of work and “for legal reasons.”
I told her I didn’t think we needed to do any paperwork just yet.
“For legal reasons” became something of a running joke between us. A year later, I sent roses to her office with a card that read, “For legal reasons. Love, Wes.”
On September 12, I married her at Swiss & Madison. Our head table sat almost exactly where that accidental first date happened.
Small business was everywhere at our wedding, intentionally. The day itself was themed after Connect Business Magazine, and wherever possible, we chose local businesses to help bring it together.
Small business bringing us together also continued a family tradition.
My mom was working at Zanz when my dad was hired as manager. He met her and rather quickly decided he was going to marry her. It took her a little longer to reach the same conclusion.
Their first kiss happened in the bathroom doorway at Zanz. They eventually married, purchased the restaurant in 1987 and had my sister a month later. Six and a half years after that, I came along.
So when I say I’m a product of small business, I mean it quite literally.
Small business brought my parents together. Decades later, it brought Molly and me together. And while working on this issue of Connect, I started noticing versions of that same relationship between business and marriage elsewhere.
Aaron Hatanpa talked about how valuable it is that his wife, Jess, understands his business and understands when something unexpectedly requires his attention.
Cheryl Hamond owns Pond Road Market, but Jason is woven throughout the operation behind the scenes. He handles bookkeeping, fixes things, helps with construction and steps in when Cheryl needs him.
The paperwork might tell you who owns a business. It doesn’t always tell you who is helping build it.
Molly has become integral to Zanz, helping train employees and supervise operations. At OMG and Connect, she’s the person I bounce stories and ideas off of and someone who helps execute much of what we do.
There are plenty of wonderful things about sharing that part of your life with your spouse.
There are also late nights, employee problems and texts that arrive during special occasions and send the entire evening sideways.
Your time is not entirely your own when you’re an entrepreneur.
In some ways, business ownership gives you tremendous control over your schedule. You can create opportunities to be somewhere when other people are stuck at work.
Until you can’t.
On our wedding day, an employee at Zanz called in sick. For a brief period, there was a very real possibility that my sister would have to choose between closing the restaurant or missing her brother’s wedding.
Fortunately, another employee stepped up.
Most customers will never know that happened. But anyone who has owned a business, or been married to someone who does, probably understands it.
I don’t think a spouse signs up to unquestioningly support every ambition the other person has. Frankly, that sounds like a dangerous arrangement for someone married to an entrepreneur.
What you owe each other is honesty about what you’re trying to build and some agreement about the kind of life you want that business to support.
I also don’t believe much in perfect balance.
There will be seasons when work requires more. There will be moments when an opportunity demands attention, when money is tight or when the responsibility you have to employees means business has to take priority.
There also have to be seasons when the scale swings back.
At the end of the day, I believe the marriage is more important. That doesn’t make earning a living unimportant, ambition selfish or every employee problem something that can wait until Monday.
It means Molly and I have to pursue those things in partnership with each other.
When I think about 25 or 30 years from now, I hope we can look back and say we built happy lives together.
For both of us, I suspect business will always be part of that. It’s one of the things that brought us together in the first place.
A few weeks ago, we sat at our wedding reception almost exactly where we had sat years earlier when Molly looked across the table and asked me whether we were on a date.
This time, there wasn’t much ambiguity about the relationship.
We even did the paperwork.
For legal reasons, of course.
