Date: July 31, 2010
Where held: Astor Courts Estate, Rhinebeck, N.Y.
Number of guests: 400
Cost: $5 million
Think it's tough for royals to wed? Consider the challenge of holding an intimate gathering for 400 on the banks of the Hudson River when your name is Chelsea Clinton.
"Well, your dad was the president! Your mother is secretary of state!" says Souza. "I felt they handled it with a great amount of grace. Another great planner, Bryan Rafanelli, did that event."
The bride wore a $20,000 Vera Wang strapless silk organza ball skirt and train with a silk tulle bodice and $250,000 in jewelry. Among the major expenses: $750,000 for catering, $600,000 for glass-walled tenting, $500,000 in flowers and $11,000 for the gluten-free cake. Perhaps the Federal Aviation Administration threw in the no-fly zone during the ceremony as a wedding gift.
"The best part of their wedding was, it was very small-town. If you look at the ceremony, it was a very simple wooden folding chair -- not ostentatious, not a state event. The ceremony itself was very natural-looking, branchy, beautiful. Again, a lot of the money that was spent there was on infrastructure instead of on decor," says Souza.