Chelsea Clinton (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
Well, it’s been a big week!
The Jonas Brothers visited the White House.
Condi and Aretha nearly brought the house down with their piano and vocal duo in the City of Brotherly Love (only they aren’t brothers). Just take a look at their busts, I am sorry.
And, drum roll – possibly the most talked about wedding of the decade is happening this Saturday, July 31, 2010.
Wait. Excuse me, please. Calling this the wedding of the decade is border-line ignorant, according to my news feed. Apparently, Chelsea Clinton’s wedding is The Wedding of the Century.
If you are unaware of this wedding, you need to crawl out from under your rock.
In case you are unaware, let me illuminate you on a few of the details. And, then, let me make a few stabs at the deeper significance behind America’s obsession with Chelsea’s big day. (After all, the fact that Chelsea was one of the more shielded and less-reported-on First Daughters makes the obsession all the more curious.)
A Few Questions
So, what warrants the title, The Wedding of the Century?
Allow me to give you 5 simple reasons.
1. The Price Tag: The price tag on this wedding is rumored to be a humble $5 million, and no one from the Clinton camp is refuting it. That’s rather substantial.
2. The Guest List: The guest list is speculated to be somewhere between 400-500. Babs, Soros, Oprah, Turner, Speilberg, and a few others will be in attendance.
3. The Secret Venue: The secret venue is becoming less and less of a secret due to the swarm of secret service agents who have invaded Rhinebeck, New York. White ‘tentage’ – yes, I made up the word ‘tentage’ – suggests that the Astor Courts Estate is where the actual wedding festivities will take place.
4. The Dress: The dress, like the venue and even the actual date, is also a secret. The press, however, has whittled down the designer options to two. There is Vera Wang, who looks to the regal Princess Diana for her design inspiration. And, there is Oscar de la Renta, who turns to the iconic gowns of Grace Kelly’s for his wedding prototype. (Note, he recently designed Jenna Bush’s gown, which provides a decent comparison on the media attention being brought to this wedding versus recent First Daughter weddings.)
- My personal vote is for an Oscar de la Renta gown. (I mean, men love to ogle women, so it makes sense that male designers are able to materialize everything that is most gorgeous, revealing, sophisticated and sexy on a woman.) Sadly, it has been reported that Chelsea was walking out of Vera Wang in New York on Tuesday. As such, I am personally not too optimistic on my personal Oscar preference.
5. The Fancy Flowers and Favors: The flowers will be of The Four Season’s caliber, thanks to floral designer Jeff Leatham. In addition, The Wall Street Journal notes that “Boston-based Winston Flowers, whose previous clients include Cartier, Gucci and Veuve Cliquot Champagne” will be partly responsible for the killer arrangements.
The favors, the favors. Of course, every wedding needs favors! Lest guests forget the $5 million wedding they just attended, they will have a lovely bottle of wine from Clinton Vineyards and Winery to carry home the day following (or to carry on the festivities that very evening!).
But what does it mean?
Despite all of the superficial reasons that I listed above, there has to be a deeper meaning as to why this wedding is getting more hits than the Gulf oil spill.
Perhaps it’s just that. Perhaps it’s that America needs something to focus on rather than the oil spill or our great 2010 depression. We need a fairy tale wedding that exudes hope, youth and extravagance. It’s one theory that probably rings true for a very small subset.
The larger story here is that the Clintons continue to be a force majeure for the American public. Be it out of adoration, fascination, puzzlement or disdain – America won’t let go. The Clintons are kind of like The Comeback Kid.
Despite getting it wrong, they just never get it wrong.
Oh, and the minor point here – I would firmly put all of my money, house and credibility on the line when I posit that Hillary Clinton will be the first female president of the United States of America. America feels it – and even if you resist it – you know it. So there is that.
Finally, for so many of us, Chelsea resonates. She is a very, very smart girl, who never sought the lime light or the party scene. She keeps her head down and seems very grounded. For that, she’s a hero to me. And, so, I follow her, and I choose to spend a lot of time on her. And for whatever hardships her parents had, they plugged through. There is a lot to be said for that.
Congrats Chelsea.
Sarah Lenti is the blogger behind NMPolitics.net’s The Savvy. E-mail her at sarah@nmpolitics.net. This posting has been updated to remove a statement that President Obama was invited after he said that he was not invited, and a statement that de la Renta designed Grace Kelly’s dress.