Our favorite bicoastal power couple, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, have postponed their Sept. 4 wedding -- and, true to Rhee form, fired a bunch of guests.
The couple said in a statement Tuesday evening that they “under-estimated the intensity of interest in the wedding” and that it was all getting out of hand. They said the “current wedding plans are not what we had intended” and that they have “decided on a smaller, more private affair with just immediate friends and family,” at a time and place yet to be decided.
Invitations to the Sept. 4 wedding, which was slated for St. John's Lutheran Church in Sacramento, began hitting mailboxes a few weeks ago.
Of course, speculation has already started about the meaning of the change. Politico notes that the reception had been scheduled “to take place at the home of developer Angelo Tsakopoulos, who has frequent dealings with the city of Sacramento -- a fact that led the Sacramento Bee to raise the issue of a potential conflict of interest.”
The Washington Post’s Reliable Source duo is skeptical about the media glare complaint, observing that “Chelsea Clinton managed to pull off her big day, despite a smattering of media coverage.” And of course, many in D.C. have noted that the ceremony was scheduled for 10 days before a mayoral primary in which the bride is a major issue.
Maybe for once, though, the story is just what it seems. It’s entirely possible that this high-powered pair simply wants their wedding ceremony to be about themselves and their upcoming life together, not about political machinations.
Rhee has already had to cope with somewhat sexist assumptions that she might quit her job after her wedding, as if we were in the era of Donna Reed and not Hillary Clinton. As DCist’s Aaron Morrissey wrote recently, no one has suggested that Johnson “may consider stepping down as the Mayor of Sacramento simply because he's going to be in a ‘bicoastal marriage.”
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If you weren’t invited to the wedding, or were but now are not, you can still send a gift from their online registry. Everybody needs a $265 sugar bowl.
