I just heard about Chelsea Clinton’s upcoming wedding.
You: It was announced some time ago.
Well, somehow I missed getting an invitation.
You: Yeah, me too. Are you surprised?
Not at first, since I don’t know Chelsea Clinton. Or Bill. Or Hillary.
You: You don’t know who they are?
I know who they are – but I don’t know them personally.
You: Me too. So why did you come to believe you’d be invited to a wedding you only just learned about?
I thought everyone was going to be invited.
You: That’s ridiculous.
I know that now. So I had to do some research. Turns out that the expected $3 to $5 million cost is only going to cover about 500 invited guests.
You: That’s like $1,000 a plate!
No, on the high end, it’s actually about $10,000 a plate.
You: Oh my.
If that had been the cost per person at my wedding, I’d still be single.
You: C’mon Michael, we know you love your family.
No doubt, but we didn’t spend anywhere near $20,000 on our wedding. As such, either my wife or I couldn’t have attended, let alone any of our guests. Of course I would have selected my wife to attend rather than myself, but I am not sure how well the first dance would have gone over.
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I realize I didn’t need any security at my wedding, but $600,000 for air conditioning? I got married in July in Florida, yet still “negotiated” no separate AC charge.
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Michael,
People whose families HAVE enough money to spend outrageously usually WILL spend money outrageously. Ms. Clinton has never been forced to save money so it probably doesn’t occur to her that $600,000 for AC is a tad ridiculous. I don’t imagine frugality was a common topic in her household, so she never learned about it.
Thanks for your ever interesting posts.
@Nora: Thanks for your comment, Nora. A role model for financial behavior is invaluable. (I’m not making a political comment here, only furthering your point that it’s unlikely any emphasis was placed on saving strategy in such a unusual (growing up in the White House) upbringing).
The wedding happened about 5 minutes up the road from where I live. It really was a very expensive affair. The sad thing for us is that it did not bring in much money on a local level. Caterers, florists, etc were all imported in from NYC.
Use of the mansion was $2M alone. They also paid for many silly things – like for the volunteer fire dept to water the grass and flowers so that they look nice.
The kicker? The Clintons asked the town of Rhinebeck to have extra police on shift during the big event – at the cost of the tax payers. $2500 in one day – I kind of wonder why they couldn’t lump that all into their $5M budget.
To put the cost of this wedding into more perspective, think about how much money both Bill and Hillary spent combined on campaigning. That would have been enough to cover many Chelsea Clinton weddings. These people don’t think frugally because money just doesn’t mean that much to them.