Bride Has 500-Pound Wedding Cake; Presents Valued at $1 Million

1920

NEW YORK, N. Y. -- Not since long before the war has New York society been so interested in a marriage as it was in that the other day of Miss Rachel Littleton and Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jr. St. Thomas' Church was filled an hour before the time set for the ceremony. Three thousand persons were crowded into the building, which has a seating capacity of twenty-three hundred. Two thousand more, socially prominent people of New York and Newport, were massed outside about the entrance seeking a glimpse of the bridal couple. A squad of policemen was required to clear a passage from the street to the altar for the bridal procession.

The whole social world of the eastern coast turned out for the occasion. Rubbing shoulders with mentors and dictators of society were hundreds of former doughboys, comrades of the 22-year-old bridegroom in the 27th Division overseas, where he served as a private in his divisional headquarters company.

But, while creating such a stir as few other weddings have done, that of the Vanderbilt heir and his beautiful bride from Tennessee was simple. There were no decorations to speak of -- only palms and white roses grouped about the chancel.

Just as the church was simply decorated, so was the home of Mr. and Mrs. Martin Littleton, where the reception was held. In the living-room, where Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt received the congratulations of their friends, a 500-pound wedding cake occupied the center of a great bay window banked with flowers. The cake, designed by Charles Wilson of Sherry's, cost $2,500 to prepare. It was three feet in diameter and five and one-half feet high. Twenty pounds of it were placed in a monogrammed box and hermetically sealed, to be opened by Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt on the twenty-fifth anniversary of their marriage. The remainder was cut into one thousand pieces and distributed among the reception guests.

If the decorations of the church and the reception room were simple the same could not be said of the gifts the couple received. Those of the bride alone were valued at more than one million dollars.

After the reception Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt left for a tour of the United States and Canada, with the intention of attending both the Chicago and San Francisco conventions. Late in the fall they expect to go to Europe.

--The Saturday Blade, Chicago, March 27, 1920, page 4.