14. The Brides Cried at Their Weddings
The daughters of the Gilded Age’s nouveau rich had everything that they could want. They had jewelry, clothing, servants, and quite often, men who loved them. The problem is that they often were not able to marry the men that they liked because their parents paid for them to marry a stranger in the United Kingdom. Consuelo Vanderbilt was the daughter of William Vanderbilt, who shared the Vanderbilt’s newly-found fortune and could afford to “buy” his daughter a noble title by having her marry the Ninth Duke of Marlborough. The problem was that both Consuelo and the duke were in love with other people.
Consuelo’s wedding was the social event of the season. In November of 1895, crowds lined Fifth Avenue as she made her way to St. Thomas Episcopal Church. The wedding was the definition of a celebrity wedding; her mother leaked everything about it, down to the golden clasps on the wedding gown, to the press, which ate it up. Of the wedding, Consuelo said, “I spent the morning of my wedding day in tears and alone; no one came near me.” Meanwhile, the duke would obtain, through Consuelo’s dowry, the money that he needed to continue maintaining Blenheim Palace and pursue some much-needed renovations.