Wedding spells municipal boon
You know it”™s a memorable weekend when the former President of the United States strolls the main street of your little village on Friday and that is not even the biggest event that weekend. Such was the happy circumstance Rhinebeck found itself in the last weekend in July when the Chelsea Clinton-Marc Mezvinsky wedding occurred at an estate overlooking the Hudson River.
Former president Bill Clinton”™s leisurely perambulation down Montgomery Street through delighted town folk, tourists and international media was just the start of a weekend the Rhinebeck Area Chamber of Commerce could not have designed better to showcase the town to the world.
Afterward, a tired-but-gratified town is tallying earnings from hosting a world-class wedding and wondering what to do next to benefit from the publicity. (Memo: Scratch Bristol-Levi wedding plans.)
After weeks of anticipation and forced silence, the fun started at lunchtime Friday, July 29. “We had very short advance notice,” said Laura Pensiero, a nutritionist, author and chef owner of Gigi Trattoria, a restaurant on Montgomery Street that has drawn national attention for its focus on healthy delectable Mediterranean cuisine cooked with fresh local ingredients and where Clinton lunched Friday.
“Around noon we got a call and a quick run through with the Secret Service,” before Clinton”™s imminent arrival, said Pensiero. “We had no idea he was going to walk all the way up the street and bring the crowd with him. That was a quite surprising and a joyous thing. It was great. He wanted to share his joy and give back to the community.”
His entrance left the lunch crowd, “completely stunned silent for a minute” before he proceeded to a private back room amid cheers, happily greeting well wishers all along the route. “We talked to his people about how the crowds were unreal and about using another exit if he wanted to, but of course, he didn”™t want to,” said Pensiero.
Clinton went to the kitchen and shook everyone”™s hand, “Which made their day to say the least; it made their year,” said Pensiero, and then he left through the front door, as “Everyone just roared and shouted congratulations and he just seemed delighted,” she said.
“It was truly good energy all weekend,” said Pensiero, and that includes the so-called green energy. She said that the wedding planners quietly contracted with “plenty of vendors” from the local area, both before during and after the wedding. “They did plenty of outreach and had input from the local businesses,” she said.
And yet, mum is still the word. “We were honored and thrilled to be part of Chelsea”™s wedding,” she said. “We provided Hudson Valley Mediterranean meals to the family and staff throughout their stay,” she said, adding that was about the extent of the information she could offer. She said meals were delivered to wedding event staffers.
“We did well,” said Bruce J. Troy, president of the Rhinebeck Area Chamber of Commerce, “It was good for everyone. And it was fun.” He noted Chamber staff were so tired after fielding calls from as far away as Japan and Australia they took most of the following week off to recuperate. “It was unbelievable, the phone calls were one after the other. We were bombarded, which is good.”
He said the town was considering how to market itself as a wedding destination even before the Clinton wedding was announced. Now, he said, the area could use a destination hotel and, noting that the 50-acre Astor Court estate property that hosted the wedding is for sale (again ”“ it was previously on the market), mused how wonderful it would be if it was purchased and became a hotel that specialized in weddings.