New York, July 20: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday said her “lips are sealed” over daughter Chelsea’s ultra-secret upcoming wedding.
Almost nothing is known about Chelsea’s marriage to investment banker Marc Mezvinsky except that it takes place July 31 and seems sure to be the society event of the summer.
Asked about the guest list, Clinton told NBC television: “My lips are sealed. I am under very strict orders not to talk about it, and I think for the right reasons, because it is hers, and it is a family wedding.”
Even the location remains unconfirmed, not to mention Chelsea’s wedding dress designer.
Gossip blogs and people watchers are putting their money on a luxury property modelled after France’s Versailles palace in Rhinebeck, upstate New York.
But guests – expected to be a glitzy combination of Washington and Hollywood, including TV chat show queen Oprah Winfrey – will reportedly be told where to go no more than a week ahead.
President Barack Obama is not expected to attend, although initially the grapevine said he would.
The secretary of state, on a trip to troubled US ally Pakistan, told NBC only that “the people coming are her friends and people who have been meaningful in her life.”
The Clinton family is also taking pains to emphasize that Chelsea’s big day won’t be overshadowed by her powerful mother or probably even more famous father, ex-president Bill Clinton.
Hillary Clinton said her husband was just hoping he could perform his paternal duty. “You should assume that if he makes it down the aisle in one piece it’s a major accomplishment. He’s going to be so emotional, as am I,” Hillary Clinton laughed.
“But we’re both looking forward to it and very happy about it.”
Nevertheless, Obama’s foreign policy chief couldn’t help plugging the wedding between Chelsea, who was raised a Methodist, and Mezvinsky, a Jew, as a symbol of American values.
“It says a lot about the United States. It says a lot about this wonderful experiment known as America where we recognize the right that every single person has to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” Clinton said. “Over the years, so many of the barriers that prevented people from getting married, crossing lines of faith or color or ethnicity have just disappeared,” she said.
“I think in the world that we’re in today we need more of that.”
–AGencies