The wedding of former First Daughter Chelsea Clinton to investment banker Marc Mezvinsky is this summer’s ultimate status invitation. There will be only 400 names on the guest list, a good size for a wedding by ordinary standards, but barely big enough to accommodate the people who slept in the Lincoln Bedroom during Bill Clinton’s presidency. So planning it has been a diplomatic problem of the highest order. “Donors are expecting to be invited,” says a major Clinton fund-raiser. Then there are the campaign, State Department, and Clinton Foundation staff, plus foreign dignitaries and both Clinton and Obama White House officials. These complexities, say bride-side sources, are one reason why Chelsea has instituted a strict no-strangers policy: She must personally know every invitee. (Of course, it’s also a way of giving her parents an out for donors who don’t make the cut.)
The secrecy has seemed more reminiscent of a giant military operation than a wedding. Early speculation was that it would be held on Martha’s Vineyard, but more recently sources have confirmed that the nuptials will be held on July 31 in a still-secret location within a three-hour drive of New York City. “The wedding planner will contact each guest directly a week in advance and let them know where it is,” says the fund-raiser, who speculated that the Hamptons are out because the L.I.E. can be a very long road. The smart money, then, is somewhere upstate, possibly in Westchester or Dutchess County—most likely on property owned by a Clinton supporter. “You really see who their closest friends are in this list,” says an insider. “It’s not a celebrity-driven wedding.”
Full story: Where Will Chelsea Clinton Wed? And Who’s Invited? — New York Magazine
