Presidential progeny Chelsea Clinton and her beau Marc Mezvinsky prove
that opposites attract when it comes to this charming couple.
According to Vogue, Chelsea Clinton first met Marc Mezvinsky in 1992 at Renaissance
Weekend — an invite-only retreat that the Clintons frequently attended. After growing
up in the same political circles, Chelsea and Mezvinsky both ended
up attending Stanford University where their friendship blossomed into romance.
Flash forward a few years. Chelsea and Marc tied the knot in 2010, in Rhinebeck,
New York. According to the BBC, the wedding cost between $2 and $3 million dollars. Around 500
guests apparently attended, including people like Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks, and Barbra Streisand.
There was even a no-fly zone set up during the wedding so the couple could have privacy.
"This is the biggest thing to hit Rhinebeck since
Washington's army drove the British out of Rhinebeck."
Wedding planner Claudia Hanlin told Today,
"It’s going to be very understated, elegant, but befitting a royal wedding for the U.S."
The wedding also featured a joint Jewish and Christian ceremony. Former President
Bill Clinton walked his daughter down the aisle and, during the ceremony,
the couple read the poem "The Life I Have" by Leo Marks.
Bill Clinton also expressed his feelings towards his new son-in-law, telling reporters,
"I like him very much, I really do. I admire him. I feel very blessed. Hillary thinks the
same way. We think he's fabulous." A quick look at Chelsea Clinton and
Marc Mezvinsky's backgrounds and you might be surprised that they ended up together.
While the couple both have parents in politics, that seems to be where the similarities end.
In 2012, Marc told Vogue,
"She's very much the yin to my yang. I don't want to say I'm aloof, but I definitely can
exist in a cloud. I walk into parking meters. She's the antithesis of that."
If Chelsea is straight-laced and precise,
Marc is perhaps a little more easygoing. Chelsea Clinton's chief of staff told Vogue,
"He's this playful schoolboy stuck inside this wicked-smart, really astute adult body. He's as
happy goofing off as he is talking finance with world leaders. He's the best of both worlds."
Chelsea Clinton's upbringing was anything but normal. Luckily, her husband understands just
how strange being the First Daughter must have been for his wife — because he was
there to see it firsthand. The pair first met when Chelsea was 12 and he was 15, and
they struck up a friendship. In fact, their two families have actually been friends for decades.
Over the years, Chelsea has alluded to the fact that her marriage is built on friendship. In 2011,
she spoke about her relationship at a gay rights benefit, saying,
"I certainly believe that all of my friends,
as Marc and I did, should have the right to marry their best friends."
While Chelsea and Marc may have fallen in love as adults, it's clear that they built the real
foundations of their marriage when they were childhood friends. Marc told Glamour,
"What can I say? She's the love of my life."
Even though Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky are pretty different thanks to their upbringings
and their personalities, they seem to be a couple who bring out the best in each other.
At the heart of their marriage is laughter. Chelsea's bridesmaid Jen Lee Koss told Glamour,
"Marc brings out this incredibly silly,
sidesplittingly hilarious side of Chelsea, and that's something she really needs."
According to Marc,
"Chelsea has Herculean willpower, but for all her intensity, she
still doesn't take herself too seriously." Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky learned the
hard way that a good relationship is built on making quality time for your partner.
When they were still dating, Chelsea had been working at a finance firm
while simultaneously earning a master's degree. She told Glamour,
"At one point a month had gone by, and Marc [...] and I hadn't gone out on a date."
Realizing that she wasn't making time for Marc taught her a valuable lesson. She continued,
"I don't want to be this person. I want to be a person who cares where she's
investing her time and energy. And I want to be a good wife, daughter, and friend."
Since then, Chelsea has made an effort to spend quality time with Marc, even if her schedule is
just as jam-packed as ever. For one thing, the couple tries to squeeze in a weekly date, telling
Vogue that they try to see a movie once a week. Another thing that the couple has in common is
their profession; both Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky work in the finance sector.
Over the years, Marc has worked at several large firms and hedge funds. He worked at Goldman Sachs
before briefly working in private equity in 2011 and starting his own hedge fund later that year.
According to The New York Times, the fund lost almost 90% of the $25 million it had raised
from investors before closing. Marc then took a job at Social Capital, before moving to TPG.
Chelsea has had a little more success in the industry. She's
worked at a management consulting firm, a hedge fund, and in private
equity. Even though Chelsea has perhaps been a little more successful than her husband,
the pair have thrived while working in the same field. She told The Telegraph,
"We both built lots of Excel models. We geek out a lot."
So, where does a wealthy couple like Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky actually live?
Unsurprisingly, their home is extravagant. Their massive apartment was purchased for a
reported $10 million dollars in 2013, and is in the exclusive New York City
condominium complex called The Whitman. The apartment overlooks Madison Square
Garden and features what is alleged to be the longest hallway in any New York City apartment
at 250 feet. Broker Dina Lewis explained about the size of the excessive dwelling,
"One spouse can be fast asleep while the other has a huge dinner party. All on one floor."
The home reportedly also features two dressing rooms, giant closets,
oak floors, six and a half bathrooms, an office, a media room, an elevator,
and a huge open living space. It doesn't really get more luxurious than this!
Despite living in the New York City equivalent of a palace, the couple says that they try to keep
their lives as normal as they can. As Chelsea mused to Vogue in 2012, she's always felt
that her life has been both "extraordinarily normal" and "extraordinarily extraordinary."
"I would never want to live in a cloister. It's important to me to walk down the street
and hear what people are talking about or go for a run on the West Side Highway."
She and her husband also ride the subway rather than take private cars. Chelsea continued,
"It's one of the great gifts of New York City. Why would I want to miss that?"
After the death of her grandmother Dorothy in 2011, Chelsea Clinton found herself becoming
eager to have children of her own. So, she and Marc made a plan. She told Glamour,
"The first thing on the list was simple: We want, God willing,
to start a family. So we decided we were going to make 2014 the Year of the Baby."
And right on schedule in 2014, Chelsea and Marc had their first child, Charlotte.
Chelsea later told People that having a child had transformed her and her husband's lives, saying,
"I didn't know I could care more intensely about
anything until I became a mom. [...] Somehow I love my husband even more."
According to her, Marc proved to be an amazing father.
Chelsea and Marc went on to have two more children, Aidan in 2016 and Jasper in 2019,
and Chelsea, an only child, found herself feeling a little overwhelmed. Luckily,
her husband had 10 siblings growing up, and was there to offer support. She told Romper,
"Actually for him it was quite a different experience,
having two kids and then having three kids, because there were so many kids
in the house when he was growing up and he is very close to his mom."
While Chelsea found herself worrying about the children bickering, Marc reassured her
it was normal. She recalled, "Marc would be like, 'They're
fighting over a crayon or a Magna Tile or a Lego. It's normal. It's fine.'"
By now, Marc Mezvinsky is well and truly a part of the Clinton family. Chelsea has
always made sure to keep her parents close to their grandkids, regardless of distance.
"She asks about her grandma every day." "So you Facetime?"
"Oh we do. Oh yes. I'm convinced it's for grandparents, Kevin. I'm convinced of that."
That changed during the coronavirus pandemic when Chelsea Clinton, her husband, and their
three children spent an extended period with her parents during the summer. She told People,
"It was really wonderful for our kids to have that time with their
grandparents [...] from late spring really through the whole summer,
where they were able to plant a garden together and tend a garden together and
pick and harvest the food together and eat the food together and play so many games."
Having acknowledged the long period of time spent with the Clintons,
Chelsea also explained that she and her husband were trying to keep
their children connected to the other side of their family too, continuing,
"[We're] super aware of how much time we haven't had with other parts of our family. We've just
tried to figure out ways to remain connected, especially for our kids with our cousins."