I have an abnormally poor autobiographical memory, but I am certain that in January 2005, I attended the wedding of Melania Knauss and Donald Trump. I was there as the plus-one of my wife at the time, who had spent a few days in Melania's company while reporting a cover story for Vogue about Melania's wedding dress—a Christian Dior cone of white satin, from which the beautiful bride and her fuming sixteen-foot veil materialized as if from a volcano.
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I had met neither Melania Knauss nor Donald Trump, but, according to the Tiffany-produced invitation, they requested the honor of my presence at their marriage, at the Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea, in Palm Beach, and thereafter at a reception at the Mar-a-Lago Club.
I mentioned this to a few friends, and only one—a poet—took issue with my intention to accept the invitation. Trump, in those days, was merely a self-publicizing real-estate guy who had recently scored a big hit with “The Apprentice,” in which he played the part of a judicious and masterly business magnate.
I took the poet's abhorrence to be more aesthetic than political, and, even if it were the latter, even if she had, in fact, given voice to a sense that a gathering of the very rich and powerful ought to be met with nothing but one's rejection, there was no question, from an anthropological perspective, of not going. Claude Lévi-Strauss, who presumably hated partying and partiers, would have made the trip to the subtropics. But he wasn't invited.
We flew south on the eve of the big day and checked into a cheap hotel in West Palm Beach. The next morning, we were told that we'd been expected at Mar-a-Lago itself.
That had to have been an error. Even a palazzo like Mar-a-Lago has a finite number of guest rooms, and surely these were going to accommodate the happy couple's innermost social circle, and surely my wife's agreeable but plainly journalistic interactions with Melania could not have propelled her, plus me , into the sanctum sanctorum. But they had. Nothing less than a room in the main house was ours to occupy. Any lingering concerns about mistaken identity were removed when we discovered, in the bathroom, his-and-hers Mar-a-Lago Club bathrobes, each embroidered with the club crest and a monogram of our initials.
The wedding was not until the evening. In the meantime, guests were invited to make full use of the Mar-a-Lago Club's spa facilities, including massages, and of the nearby Trump International Golf Club—the first example of the many client-entertainment, cost, and branding synergies that would characterize the occasion. (The Trump wedding, if it isn't already, maybe ought to be taught as a case study at Wharton.) I chose to play a round of golf. Because it involves sport, I remember the circumstances reasonably well.