SATURDAY, JULY 31, 2010
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From Page One wedding from A1
their First Daughter, family inti- mates say. The talking points that evolved seem to honor and elevate their only child, while providing cover for parents whose political and social lives intertwine, some- times: The guests must have a personal connection to the bride or the groom. This is Chelsea’s day, not her famous parents’ day. “They respect her and what she
thinks. . . . They want what she wants,” says a family friend who is attending the wedding and agreed to speak for a few mo- ments only after a series of cross- my-heart, hope-to-die, stick-a- needle-in-my-eye promises of anonymity. “They raised her to be her own person — independent in thought.” In some cases, intermediaries communicated the message to the dearly snubbed, family friends say, and sometimes even the former president himself lodged an I-feel-your-pain call. Still, there are whispers of in- jured feelings among the elites in Washington and New York who were left out. Some feel com- pelled to feel bad on behalf of others. New York donor Victor Kovner, not going? How could that be?
D.C.’s top secret?
The allure juicing the celebra- tion only intensifies because of the secrecy. (Another first daugh- ter, Jenna Bush, had her own fab- ulous nuptials in 2008 when her dad was still commander in chief. Jenna took less of a wedding-as- state-secret approach, sharing dress details with Vogue editors.) Divining the invitees to the
Clinton soiree is a Washington parlor game of the most status- clarifying kind, an exercise in who’s up, who’s down and who’s on the bubble. Wedding guests and non-guests alike shudder at the thought of the Clintons find- ing out any hint that they’ve been gabbing. The clampdown is a tes- tament to the loyalty the Clintons
inspire and the intensely genuine affection many feel for Chelsea, as well as an acknowledgement, for some, that banishment from the circle would be the assumed punishment. “I’d have to kill myself after we
talked, so I think I’ll pass,” one Washington pooh-bah and log- ical invitee says. A curious num- ber of sources asked about the guest list simply respond “nope,” as if working from a script. Even normally talkative types operate in a cone of silence, politely ducking interview requests through their assistants. “Thank you for thinking of Mandy for this piece,” writes an assistant to Mandy Grunwald, a typically chatty Clinton spinmeister. “Un- fortunately she won’t be speaking on this topic.” The left-out group is more
firmly established than the let-in group. President Obama, whose victory nixed the White House as a wedding venue, won’t be going — even said so on “The View” — nor will former British prime minister Tony Blair, he of the Spe- cial Relationship with Bill Clin- ton, according to a spokesman. Al and Tipper Gore, now in the throes of a separation, issued a statement a while back that they won’t be attending, without elu- cidating whether they were in- vited.
Among those widely expected to be “in” are Hillary Clinton’s brothers, Hugh and Tony Rod- ham; whether Bill’s brother, Rog- er — always entertaining — will make the scene is a favorite topic. The smart money is on Tony Rod- ham’s daughter, Fiona, as flower girl. There will surely be plenty of school and work friends of the bride and groom, and the whis- pering classes are feeling awfully confident that the guests will in- clude Washington power broker Vernon Jordan and his wife, Ann, as well as Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a wealthy business- woman and Clinton stalwart, and Elizabeth Bagley, a former am- bassador to Portugal who navi- gates the upper tiers of George-
PHOTOS BY BILL O’LEARY/THE WASHINGTON POST
The small town of Rhinebeck, in New York’s Hudson River Valley, has been abuzz with an influx of media outlets and tourists in the run-up to Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky’s nuptials. Above, passersby enjoy an impromptu toast with champagne served by a merchant.
town society. Heavy speculation also centers on former White House chums, such as Melanne Verveer, the U.S. ambassador-at-large for women’s issues who was once Hillary Clin- ton’s chief of staff, as well as on Capricia Marshall, the current White House chief of protocol who is said to have grown close to Chelsea while serving as her mother’s social secretary. An- other widely expected guest is Huma Abedin, the elegant aide who is Hillary’s right arm; she married New York’s feisty con-
gressman Anthony Weiner in a ceremony officiated by Bill Clin- ton earlier this month. Abedin is considered so tight with the MOTB that one Clinton friend quipped that two of HRC’s daugh- ters are getting married this sum- mer.
‘A no-fanfare person’
Hillary Clinton’s biological bride-to-be maintained her Gar- bo-esque reticence as her big day approached. “What she’s trying to do is minimize the atmospherics that have been created around
this — all the stuff around the edges,” a wedding guest says. “The irony is that Chelsea is such a no-fanfare person.” Chelsea — now a stylishly flat- ironed and poised 30-year-old, not the gawky, curly haired teen- ager of our memories — demands privacy, officially. Then again, she opts for a wedding extravaganza that commands spotlight atten- tion, rather than following the au courant celebrity model of the tiny wedding in a private resi- dence. To some, there is an ele- ment of “don’t look at me, look at me” to the whole affair. She slips into a big floppy hat to conceal her identity, but heads through the front door to visit dressmaker Vera Wang — an image predict- ably captured and splashed all over the Web. “The wedding seems as con-
flicted as the Clintons can some- times be,” says Doug Wead, an aide to the first President Bush who has written extensively about first families. “She’s a pri- vate, dignified woman; on the other hand, she’s getting married two hours from New York City.” The shabby-chic rhythms of Rhinebeck resist the effects of hype. Still, it’s impossible to avoid the wedding, especially when Bill Clinton is popping out of a vehi- cle in the middle of town, shaking hands and sitting down for lunch Friday afternoon at a place called Gigi Trattoria. Shop windows are festooned with happy-couple congrats — an image of Chelsea and Marc on a wedding cake at Wing & Clover, an art shop a few steps from Rhinbeck’s only stop- light; two doves kissing above a pencil drawing of Chelsea, and a streetside photo of Bill and Hilla- ry Clinton at Pete’s Famous Res- taurant. Before the former president’s
Rhinebeck residents Gary Kiernan and Natasha Sopchak, flanking Laura Mandigo, get into the spirit with Clinton masks.
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arrival packs the streets, the hordes of reporters occupy them- selves with the ramblings of a couple promenading one evening in Bill and Hillary Clinton masks. “I was just on ABC and CBS, the Daily News and the New York Post, all in the past 20 minutes,” Gary Kiernan says after slipping out of his Bill Clinton mask. In the lobby of the Beekman Arms, tourists interrupt tales of their
canoe trip to observe a cam- eraman running past the win- dow. Not surprisingly, there’s a fair amount of grumbling from villag- ers annoyed about the invasion of cars, the hubbub, the road clos- ings — there always are in these situations, regardless of the loca- tion. “I wanted to make a sign that said, ‘Royalty, Go Home!’ ” says Michael Tucker, a filmmaker, from the back porch of his pictur- esque home on River Road, near the wedding location. “That’s what it has been like — royalty. . . . This is not the Hamptons!” No one expects the full royal
treatment, a Lady Di train or a Cinderella carriage, for these lav- ishly inconspicuous proceedings, but the rumors of price tags in the several millions and the daughter of George Soros hosting the former first family suggest a swankified affair. The invitations went out cryptically, revealing only that the festivities would take place outside New York on July 31. Guests were asked to se- lect from several hotel price rang- es, and a travel agent made the reservations, as well as transpor- tation arrangements, one invitee explains. Just this week, guests began getting individual phone calls firming up the details. They will be bused to the wedding site, Astor Courts, a beaux-arts man- sion hidden by thick stands of trees. The 13,000-foot spread, with striking views of the Hud- son River, was designed by re- nowned architect Stanford White to resemble the Grand Trianon at Versailles, for John Jacob Astor IV, an industrialist who died in the sinking of the Titanic. The vista, with the black-tie oc- casion expected sometime around sunset, is certain to be spectacular. But there will be much more than nature’s magnif- icence on display. Once the guests arrive, they will know — most for the first time — just who’s really in and just who’s really out. And, surely, they will remember.
roigfranzia@washpost.com
Staff writers Amy Argetsinger, Roxanne Roberts, Mary Beth Sheridan and Michael Savage contributed to this report.
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