Break out the champagne! Chelsea Clinton is a married woman.
Surrounded by 400 friends, and her parents Bill and Hillary (who wore Oscar de la Renta), the former First Daughter, 30, wed her longtime boyfriend Marc Mezvinsky, 32, in Rhinebeck, N.Y., on Saturday. She wore a dress designed by Vera Wang, a family friend, who was also in attendance.
Shortly after the ceremony, President Clinton and Secretary of State Clinton released a statement. "Today, we watched with great pride and overwhelming emotion as Chelsea and Marc wed in a beautiful ceremony at Astor Courts, surrounded by family and their close friends. We could not have asked for a more perfect day to celebrate the beginning of their life together, and we are so happy to welcome Marc into our family. On behalf of the newlyweds, we want to give special thanks to the people of Rhinebeck for welcoming us and to everyone for their well-wishes on this special day."
The guest list was relatively free of star wattage (without Oprah Winfrey or President Obama) but included Mary Steenburgen, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, actor Ted Danson, film producer Steven Bing, and a handful of congressmen and other prominent Democrats. According to The New York Times, the interfaith ceremony was conducted by Rabbi James Ponet and the Rev. William Shillady. (Chelsea is Methodist; Marc is Jewish).
On Friday, a swarm of paparazzi descended upon Rhinebeck, a small town in upstate New York, trying to catch a glimpse of the festivities. Hillary Clinton wowed crowds outside the rehearsal dinner Friday night, but everybody wanted to see how the teenager who grew up in the White House had blossomed into a blushing bride.
Danson, who attended with wife Steenburgen, stated, "We want to wish them the best," adding of the couple, "they are great kids, very family-oriented."
Clinton and Mezvinsky, an investment banker who has kept a private life, have been pals since they met at a conference in 1993, and they remained close at Stanford University. But only in 2005 did their friendship turn romantic, when they debuted as a couple at the opening of Tao nightclub in Las Vegas.
They have lived together in recent years in a downtown New York apartment, along with their Yorkshire terrier Soren. As for kids, "I'm not going to put any pressure on her," Hillary told People Magazine in 2007. "But my friends are starting to have grandchildren and it's a great experience, so I look forward to it someday."
On his first day back in the office, after undergoing an emergency heart procedure last week, former President Bill Clinton encouraged kids to avoid the heart problems he has faced by eating healthy and exercising.
"I'm very, very lucky that I didn't have a much worse set of circumstances," he said Wednesday at his office in Harlem where he spoke about the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a partnership between the American Heart Association and the Clinton Foundation. "Everybody knows I went to the doctor last week for a little tune up on my heart. ... I'm glad to be back to work."
While his latest trip to the hospital was caused by a failed vein – a complication from his quadruple bypass in 2004 – the former president said, "The root causes were the habits I acquired in my childhood, mostly the way I ate and the way it interacted with my own biology and propensity to produce bad cholesterol."
He added, "I ate too much fried food, too much ice cream, too much everything."
While the former president's current prognosis is "excellent," according to his doctors, he used his recent health scare to draw attention to the epidemic of childhood obesity, one of the problems his foundation has sought to address through the Alliance for a Healthier Generation.
"Many, many young people are facing exactly the same circumstances I did unless they change their eating and exercise habits," he said. "They may or may not be as lucky as I was."
Former President Bill Clinton, who underwent coronary bypass surgery in 2004, was rushed to a New York hospital Thursday for a heart condition.
"Today President Bill Clinton was admitted to the Columbia Campus of New York Presbyterian Hospital after feeling discomfort in his chest," his spokesperson, Douglas Band, said in a statement. "Following a visit to his cardiologist, he underwent a procedure to place two stents in one of his coronary arteries. President Clinton is in good spirits, and will continue to focus on the work of his Foundation and Haiti's relief and long-term recovery efforts."
His wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and daughter Chelsea were at the hospital with him.
Clinton, 63, called the hospital's head of cardiology two days ago saying that he wasn't feeling well and having chest pains, MSNBC reports. He was originally scheduled to go to the hospital on Wednesday but postponed it until Thursday, according to MSNBC.
A stent is a metal mesh tube that opens an artery to improve blood flow. The procedure is commonly used as part of angioplasties.
Dr. Allan Schwartz, his cardiologist, says Clinton "did not have a heart attack or damage his heart" and that "the procedure went smoothly."
Schwartz expected that Clinton would "resume his very active lifestyle."
In September 2004, Clinton underwent a quadruple bypass Columbia Presbyterian, where doctors had found that some of the bypassed arteries had more than 90 percent blockage.
Former president Bill Clinton has said he is now "basically" in favor of gay marriage.
Speaking at the Campus Progress National Conference in Washington DC, Clinton was asked if he supported gay marriage.
According to the The Nation, he replied: "Yeah. I personally support people doing what they want to do. I think it's wrong for someone to stop someone else from doing that [gay marriage]."
During his term, Clinton opposed gay marriage. He was responsible for the Defence of Marriage Act, which bars access to federal benefits for gay couples and gives federal recognition to heterosexual couples only.
Current president Barack Obama has described the law as "abhorrent" and promised to repeal it in his election campaign. The law was defended in court by the Justice Department in June. The defence invoked incest and child marriage as part of its legal argument, infuriating gay activists.
However, Clinton added he still did not believe gay marriage was "a federal question".
In May, he told an audience at Toronto's Convention Centre that his views on the subject were "evolving".
Clinton is the most high-profile politician to date to change his views on gay marriage.
Break out the champagne! Chelsea Clinton is a married woman.
