Panicky bride-to-be Chelsea Clinton is secretly undergoing emergency prenuptial counseling ordered by her mom Hillary, insiders say. "Chelsea is a nervous wreck as her wedding approaches. She's terrified that she'll disgrace herself and her family," a Clinton family friend told The ENQUIRER.
The 30-year-old former first daughter is set to wed Wall Street-er Marc Mezvinsky in a $1 million dream wedding on July 31 at the Astor Courts, a 50-acre private estate in Rhinebeck, N.Y. But now she's having second thoughts.
"Chelsea never wanted a royal-style wedding with hundreds of guests. Now, she's scared to death she's going to freak out," said the source. Full Story
Chelsea should take advice from Carrie Underwood who recently got married herself.
Her father was the once world's most powerful politician, her mother is now the USA's top diplomat and both are immediately recognised around the globe.
So it is all the more remarkable that Chelsea Clinton has done such a good job of avoiding the spotlight for much of her life.
But that is about to change. Next weekend the former first daughter is to marry her long-time boyfriend, Marc Mezvinsky, a financier - an event which, with a glittering array of guests expected from around the world, will put her unavoidably in the spotlight.
What is more, The Sunday Telegraph has been told that Miss Clinton is also being groomed to take on her parents' formidable legacy on the international stage.
Armed with a newly-acquired master's degree in public health from New York's prestigious Columbia University, she is being lined up for a top role at the philanthropic foundation set up by her father, ex-president Bill Clinton.
The expectation among friends and family is that she will eventually take over its running from her father - ensuring that, as he eventually assumes a lower public profile, that part of his legacy continues to be burnished for a generation to come.
For now, however, Miss Clinton, 30, clearly has other priorities. On Saturday, she will marry Mr Mezvinsky, 32, an investor banker whose parents both served in Congress and whose father recently completed a different sort of term - five years in prison for fraud.
The bride has done her best to keep the details secret. Her mother, secretary of state Hillary Clinton, said in Pakistan last week that she is under strict orders to let nothing slip, although she did reveal that her husband was a bundle of nerves.
The 400 guests have so far only been told that they should make sure they are within driving distance of New York next weekend. But it will come as no surprise when they are informed that their destination is a country mansion just outside Rhinebeck, 90 miles north of the city.
More specifically, unless the family has deployed huge resources and scores of Secret Service agents in one of the great bluffs of all time, they will be directed to Astor Courts, a 26,000 sq ft mansion inspired by Versailles and built by tycoon John Jacob Astor IV who later died on the Titanic.
A partial guest list has also emerged in and it just as glittering as might be expected for the only child of American political royalty. President Barack Obama, talk show queen Oprah Winfrey, singer Barbra Streisand, Hollywood mogul Steven Spielberg, media baron Ted Turner and a clutch of Clintonista politicos have reportedly been invited.
So too have the two British prime ministers who were Mr Clinton's counterparts during his presidency - Tony Blair, with whom the Clintons are close, and perhaps more surprisingly John Major. There may be one notable absentee - Mr Obama is thought to have politely declined in the hope of preventing the event becoming even more of a media scrum.
What Miss Clinton does next is, of course, shrouded in the secrecy she so desires. Mr Clinton has evidently confided to friends that he hopes to become a grandfather. And his daughter is expected to take on an increasing role with his foundation - with the ultimate goal that she could succeed him and continue the family brand on the world stage.
For now, the 63-year-old ex-president maintains a tough international schedule, despite his heart problems. In February - after a trip to Haiti with his daughter - he was taken to hospital with chest pains and was fitted with two stents to restore blood flow to a coronary artery, five years after undergoing quadruple bypass surgery. But one day he will have to listen to doctors' advice to slow down.
Miss Clinton studiously avoids media attention, gives no interviews and has shown no interest in following her parents' into politics - despite her assured and impressive appearances on the campaign trail for her mother during the 2008 Democratic presidential primary race.
Rather than return to her job at Avenue Capital, a New York hedge fund run by a prominent Clinton donor, she went back to college to study health policy and management at Columbia.
She took courses that focused on international health initiatives and programmes to tackle Aids - just the sort of work conducted by the Clinton Foundation, set up by her father in New York after he left the White House in 2001. He has since turned his Clinton Global Initiative meetings into a glitzy fixture on the world charity calendar.
Miss Clinton's interest in global health issues is long-standing. As a student, she interned one summer at the World Health Organization in Geneva, working on a United Nations initiative on healthy environments for children.
"If you look at what Chelsea has studied and what she specialised in, it all points to her being groomed to take over the Clinton Foundation," said an insider at Columbia.
In fact, it isn’t even certain if the Gores have been invited to the wedding ceremony and celebration, though it is assumed they were. The press, undoubtedly have been keeping their eyes on how the Gores were going to handle this social occasion since they are close to the Clinton family.
A spokesman for the political couple, the Gores, who announced their impending divorce on June 1, 2010, says that they wish the newlyweds-to-be the best and they are extremely excited for the family's big event.
In recent news, Al Gore has also been headline news by being accused of sexual improprieties with a Portland, Oregon masseuse, Molly Hagerty, in a case that has been reopened by the Portland Police this past week.
In what is sizing up to be the wedding of the summer, Chelsea’s wedding, from media releases about the wedding gown and its designer to many stories released about the political family and past controversies surrounding her fiancé are a-buzz.
