Chelsea Clinton's beguiling 'Cinderella' wedding

Chelsea&#039;s wedding: A Cinderella-like affair.

(Image credit: Getty)

last updated 8 January 2015

Oh, how times have changed. Since the "fashion-challenged" 1970s, when Bill and Hillary Clinton unceremoniously recited their vows "in the living room of their house," weddings have evolved from aggressively informal "political statements" into dazzling affairs with "Cinderella loveliness," says Joan Vennochi in The Boston Globe. And nowhere was this decadence more on display than in Rhinebeck, NY, this past weekend, where Chelsea Clinton and her husband-to-be, Marc Mezvinsky, donned designer duds for their "storybook" nuptials. Despite the posh trappings, writes Vennochi, Chelsea "must know that looking like a princess does not guarantee a fairy tale ending." For those who came of age in the "primeval" '70s, however, it still seems "a lovely way to start things off." Here, an excerpt:

[Chelsea's wedding] was stately and very 21st century. And so unlike Oct. 11, 1975, when Bill and Hillary married in the living room of their house in Fayetteville, Ark. A photo in Clinton's book, Living History, shows a mutually joyous and frizzy-haired couple. "I wore a lace-and-muslin Victorian dress I had found shopping with my mother the night before," Hillary writes. Bill wore a polka-dot tie that does not appear to be the work of any special designer....

Weddings were simpler affairs back then. In the spirit of the times, many young couples used them to make political statements, to their parents' dismay. As the turbulent '60s mellowed out into the '70s, trappings of authority and custom were scrapped whenever possible. Some ceremonies took place outside, in parks and on beaches. The bride wore no lipstick and the bridal party wore bare feet. Even with more traditional ceremonies, a stylist didn't visit your home to do your hair and make-up.