Clinton wedding caps secret, star-studded weekend

RHINEBECK - Chelsea Clinton was married last night to Marc Mezvinsky in a sunset ceremony at a historic estate, capping a secrecy-shrouded, star-studded weekend that transfixed a sleepy town.

With the Catskills and the Hudson River as their backdrop, former president Bill Clinton and his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, joined nearly 500 guests in a glass-door-enclosed white tent built on the beaux arts Astor Courts.

"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," the Clintons said in a joint statement issued last night. "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."

Emotions run high

The ceremony was conducted by a rabbi and a reverend as Chelsea Clinton is Methodist and Mezvinsky is Jewish. The couple read a poem by Leo Marks titled "The Life I Have," according to Clinton spokesman Matt McKenna.

"It was very, very emotional moment between a mother, father and daughter," Chelsea's uncle Roger Clinton said of the ceremony.

"My brother was very emotional. Hillary was emotional."

Tour buses and limousines chauffeured guests in suits and dresses before the 6 p.m. ceremony up winding River Road, a stretch cordoned off by state police and the Secret Service.

Details of the wedding were kept close to the vest, with even shopkeepers, innkeepers, vendors and restaurateurs sworn to secrecy. Officials restricted airspace over the estate.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York's former junior senator, whisked by in a tinted-window van shortly before the ceremony's start.

In the days and hours before the wedding, celebrity spottings in town of the likes of fashionista Vera Wang, who designed the wedding dress, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, talk show host Oprah Winfrey, actors Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen and the 42nd president himself triggered a mania of flashing bulbs and running crowds.

Chelsea Clinton and Mezvinsky were friends as teenagers in Washington, and both attended Stanford University. They now live in New York, where Mezvinsky works at G3 Capital, a Manhattan hedge fund. He worked previously at Goldman Sachs as an investment banker.

Lots of inspired shtick

As it has been since word spread last week, the town center Saturday was once again a veritable easel for Clinton-wedding-inspired shtick.

A local Pizza Hut in nearby Kingston gave out free pizzas with "I Do" spelled in pepperoni; a couple gallivanted around town in Hillary and Bill masks; people even dressed their dogs in wedding attire.

Near the start of the police barricades, 111/2-year-old Dean Crenshaw sold limonade for a quarter a cup to passing motorists.

"I'm already in the black," the sixth-grader said.

Earlier in the day, a dozen people stood across from the Beekman Arms, where a pre-wedding reception was held.

With little else to do, they watched a television crew from the syndicated entertainment show "The Insider" shoot take after take of its correspondent, Jill Martin, standing on a wooden box.

"The dress! The surprise guests! The first dance!" she said again and again and again as the crowd shot cell phone pictures of her.