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By Linda Bloom*
12:00 P.M. EST Aug. 2, 2010 | NEW YORK (UMNS)
The Rev. William Shillady (right) leads a service in 2002. Shillady helped
officiate the wedding of Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky.
A UMNS file photo by John C. Goodwin.
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A United Methodist pastor and Jewish rabbi officiated at the July 31
wedding ceremony of Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky in Rhinebeck,
N.Y.
The Rev. Bill Shillady, executive director of the New York City
Society and a clergy member of the New York Annual (regional)
Conference, performed the ceremony with Rabbi James Ponet, the Jewish
chaplain of Yale University.
“It was a wonderful honor to be part of this special day in Chelsea
and Marc’s life,” Shillady told United Methodist News Service.
Although her parents — former President Bill Clinton and U.S.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton — are constantly in the public
spotlight, Chelsea Clinton is not. Little information regarding the
wedding-related events was officially released, either before or after
the nuptials.
The proud parents did issue a short statement expressing their
happiness over the union. “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,” the statement said.
Before the wedding — sometimes referred to as the event of the season
— the media speculated about the guest list of 400 to 500 and detailed
why people were betting (correctly) that the ceremony would take place
at Astor Courts, a historic Beaux Arts pavilion built for John Jacob
Astor IV at the beginning of the 20th century.
In the pre-wedding gossip, one topic — religion — drew as much
discussion as whether Oprah would attend (she did not) and who designed
the wedding dress (Vera Wang).
Longtime United Methodist
Like her mother, Chelsea Clinton, 30, is a United Methodist.
Mezvinsky, 32, comes from the conservative Jewish tradition, which
frowns on intermarriage. Was it possible she would convert? If not,
would a rabbi be part of the ceremony?
Hillary Rodham Clinton, then a U.S. senator, speaks during a reception given by the United Methodist Board of Church
and Society in 2007. A UMNS file photo by Jay Mallin.
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Those questions were answered — with a no and a yes — by the participation of both Shillady and Ponet in the wedding.
Shillady said he could not speak about the wedding or his
relationship with the Clintons. But sources at Park Avenue United
Methodist Church on the Upper East Side of Manhattan — where Shillady
served as senior pastor for nine years — said Chelsea Clinton had
occasionally attended the church.
The Sunday after Hillary Clinton announced on Jan. 20, 2007, that she
was running for President, all three Clintons attended at Park Avenue,
along with Mezvinsky.
Ponet, a Reform rabbi, has been on staff for nearly 30 years at Yale
University, where Bill and Hillary Clinton met. He also is a visiting
lecturer on the subject of Judaism at Yale Law School, the executive
director of the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale and
director of the Yale Hillel Foundation.
The newlyweds live in New York City. Chelsea Clinton recently earned a
master’s degree from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia
University. Mezvinsky, the son of a former U.S. congressman and
congresswoman, works at G3 Capital Management, a Wall Street hedge fund.
*Bloom is a United Methodist News Service multimedia reporter based in New York. Follow her at http://twitter.com/umcscribe.
News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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