John Wahl, Alabama’s Republican nominee for Lt. Governor, and Brittany Montgomery, campaign consultant and pollster, will wed this Friday, July 24 in Huntsville.

For the two, it will be the culmination of a long courtship and the beginning of a life partnership.

For their two large Southern families, it will be a merger. Wahl has seven siblings and Montgomery has eight.

For the 750 guests who RSVP’d, it will be a bit of all that plus – the political event of the year.

Those guests come primarily from the populist wing of the Alabama Republican Party. Sure, there will be those there who simply have personal or church ties to the families. But a huge, statewide showing of the Republican right will be there.

Those folks just got through electing one of their own. John Wahl had never run for elective office before. He went from State Chairman of the Alabama Republican Party to winning a hotly contested race for the state’s second-highest office in the June 16 Republican runoff.

Wahl and the populists defeated the Montgomery Insiders, many of whom did not see it coming. It helped that Wahl had the “complete and total endorsement” of President Donald Trump.

Wahl won by a comfortable margin. That was not expected.

Why can’t this just be a normal wedding of two longtime sweethearts with no politics? No way. You can’t take politics out of politics. Not in Alabama.

The ceremony is at 4 p.m. Friday, July 24 in Huntsville. The officiant is Pastor CW Kennedy. It is followed by a reception in Harvest.

Few political events in Alabama exceed 750 attendees – a GOP dinner with a major speaker (such as a Trump. Any Trump). A governor’s inauguration. The Wahl/Montgomery wedding will be bigger than most.

John Wahl at this point is only the Republican nominee for Lt. Governor. He runs in the Nov. 3 general election against Democrat nominee, State Rep. Philip Ensler (D-Montgomery). The winner will be one heartbeat away from the Governor’s chair. Brittany Montgomery would become Second Lady of Alabama.

A wedding of a nominee for Lt. Governor during the general election is highly unusual. There is no official record that indicates it has ever happened before.

The closest thing to the Wahl wedding may date back to Gov. George Wallace. Following the death of his first wife, Gov. Lurleen Wallace, Wallace married Cornelia Ellis Snively, later divorcing. He later married Lisa Taylor, a country singer, who is alive to this day.

Wahl and his new bride will take a honeymoon before kicking off yet another campaign for the November 3 general election.