Dream wedding: Michelle Obama pronounces couple man and wife in Chicago ceremony

WASHINGTON – Former first lady Michelle Obama officiated at the wedding Saturday of the daughter of her close friends, Cindy Moelis and Deputy Chicago Mayor Robert Rivkin.

Stephanie Moelis Rivkin and Joel Stern Sircus were married at the Theater on the Lake, on the Lake Michigan shore where Fullerton Avenue ends at Lake Shore Drive.

Standing under a chupah, a Jewish wedding canopy, Mrs. Obama “made a very, very lovely statement before reading the vows and pronouncing them man and wife,” a guest at the wedding told the Chicago Sun-Times Sunday.

The ceremony took place outside. Mrs. Obama did not stay for the reception, which was inside, the guest said.

Both Moelis and Rivkin served in the administration of former President Barack Obama. Rivkin was general counsel of the Department of Transportation and Moelis was the director of the White House Fellows program.

Moelis is currently president of the Pritzker Traubert Foundation, founded by former Obama Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker. Mrs. Obama and Moelis worked together years ago in Chicago’s City Hall under former Mayor Richard M. Daley.

The guests included Pritzker and her husband, Bryan Traubert; Rivkin’s brother, Charles, who was a U.S. Ambassador to France under Obama and now serves as chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America; and a Rivkin cousin, Jonathan Alter, the noted journalist, who was raised in Chicago.

Moelis and her husband, as does Pritzker, remain active in the Obama post-presidency as donors to the Obama Presidential Foundation. Charles Rivkin was a major donor and fundraiser for Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, of which Pritzker was the fundraising chair.

According to The New York Times, the bride is 27 and a sales account manager for Google in the New York office who will be moving to Chicago in October.

The Times said the groom, 26, is an investment associate at DNS Capital, “the investment office for Gigi Pritzker” and her husband. The couple, who both attended Yale, met while high school students at Walter Payton College Prep, the Times said.

Mrs. Obama kicks off her 12-city tour for her memoir “Becoming” on Nov. 13 in Chicago at the United Center.

The TMZ website first reported that Mrs. Obama officiated at the Chicago wedding.

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