Did all the Facebook cofounders promise to make honest women and men out of their partners, just as soon as the company went public? Because guess who graced the New York Times‘ Vows section today: Facebook cofounder and now New Republic publisher and editor-in-chief Chris Hughes and his partner Sean Eldridge.
The Times tells us that the pair were wedded yesterday, at their home–excuse us, their “estate”– in Garrison, New York. The announcement recounts their meeting:
The couple met in November 2005 through a college acquaintance of Mr. Eldridge’s at a brunch in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Mass. Mr. Eldridge was working as a customer service manager for a moving company in Somerville, Mass., and Mr. Hughes was a senior at Harvard, and already a founder of Facebook.
“He was very intelligent and charismatic,” Mr. Hughes said of Mr. Eldridge. “He was very kind and politically engaged, and he cared about the world around us. All of that was very attractive to me.”
Aw, it’s almost enough to make us forget we find the Vows section even more agonizing than the Modern Love column!
A source tells Betabeat that while the wedding itself was intimate, at around 75 people, the party was a blowout, with something like 400 guests. Mark Zuckerberg attended, as did fellow Facebook cofounder Andrew McCollum and his wife Gretchen Sisson. Misters Hughes and Eldridge are quite connected in the city’s Democratic circles, which probably explains what Nancy Pelosi was doing at the party, getting down to “All The Single Ladies.”
Arianna Huffington put in an appearance at the couple’s wedding dinner at Cipriani–and couldn’t resist tweeting out a photo of herself with fellow guest Senator Charles Schumer. Senator Chris Coons likewise attended, betraying an endearing sentimental streak (or maybe just a sweet tooth) by tweeting out a picture of the wedding cake.
Mr. Hughes may be busy recruiting for The New Republic in his new role as media mogul. But there were plenty of friends from the tech world in attendance as well. LocalResponse founder Nihal Mehta and his wife Reshma Saujani were both there and tweeting their congratulations–no great surprise given Mr. Hughes’ support for Ms. Saujani’s 2010 Congressional campaign. Ms. Saujani is the founder of Girls Who Code; the program’s executive director Kristen Titus was also among the guests. We heard that Eli Pariser and Peter Koechley of Upworthy (which aims to “make important content shareable”) were in attendance as well, and that Olivia Ma of YouTube did a reading.
Alberto Ibarguen, head of the Knight Foundation, and Ivanka Trump also attended. (Ms. Trump is married to Jared Kushner, head of the Observer Media Group, which owns Betabeat.)
Of course, Mr. Hughes’ nuptials follow hard on the heels of those of both Mark Zuckerberg’s surprise wedding and Andrew McCollum’s seaside affair. Starting to reconsider that bachelor lifestyle, Eduardo? Inquiring minds want to know.
With contributing reporting from Nitasha Tiku.
