Weddings

Michelle Obama Officiated a Chicago Wedding

Permission granted to upstage the bride and groom.
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By Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images.

Michelle Obama has managed to stay busy in the two years since leaving the White House. She’s sailed the high seas with Tom Hanks and Oprah. She’s maintained her First Lady-era arm strength. She’s written her memoirs, which are set to be published in November, and which she will travel the country to promote, filling stadiums like an A-list pop star. She’s launched her own get-out-the-vote campaign, aimed at increasing turnout in midterm elections. And now, it seems, she’s dipping a toe into the wedding industrial complex—or at least making a cameo.

Per an Instagram story published on TMZ, Obama officiated the wedding of a young Chicago couple over the weekend. “Holy Moly [heart emoji],” the post reads. “That moment when Michelle Obama officiated at your couain’s [sic] wedding!” Sure enough, there’s Obama, resplendent in a long robe-like coat, and holding a mic up to the mouth of the bride. (TMZ kindly cropped the poster’s handle.)

The couple that Obama upstaged is Chicago’s Stephanie Rivkin and Joel Sircus. Per The New York Times’s Vows section, which makes no mention of Mrs. O, Rivkin’s parents are deeply embedded in the Chicago community alongside the Obamas. Her father, Robert Rivkin, is the deputy mayor of Chicago, and her mother, Cindy Moelis, is the president of the Pritzker Traubert Foundation, a charity in Chicago launched by Penny Pritzker, once Obama’s commerce security.