Yahoo Finance Kathie Lee Gifford Opens Up About Daughter Cassidy's 'Wonderful' Second Wedding to Ben Wierda
Kathie Lee Gifford's daughter Cassidy Gifford finally got to have the wedding of her dreams.
Cassidy, 28, married longtime love and fiancé Ben Wierda in an intimate backyard ceremony in Michigan in June 2020, just months into the COVID-19 pandemic. (Their guest list was limited to 18 people.)
Now, Kathie, 68, is opening up about the "four-day bash" the couple threw last weekend to celebrate their union anew, joking to PEOPLE, "Momma is tired."
"She's never worn her wedding dress until now, or had her big party with the band and all that fun stuff," the former Today host says. "So that happened this past weekend here in Nashville."
"It's a great party town, I tell you," she continues. "We had about 180 guests. Still smaller than it was going to be. A lot of people are still worried about mingling, of course, during COVID. So the event was smaller, ultimately, than it might have been pre-pandemic."
Cassidy posted a stunning black-and-white photo on Instagram from the event on Wednesday, showing off her sweeping lace gown.
"Boy do I love you @letsgetwierda," she captioned the post.
RELATED: Kathie Lee Gifford Says She Felt Late Husband Frank 'Smiling' at Their Children's Weddings
For the original ceremony, Cassidy wore an "off-the-rack cotton dress" and went barefoot, Kathie says.
"She hadn't even gotten a pedicure. I go, 'Cassidy Gifford!' And she goes, 'Mom, who cares!'" Kathie recalls. "She did the works this time, so it was fun. They had their big bash at a wonderful place in downtown lower Broadway called Acme, owned by one of my wonderful friends from when I first moved here, Tom Morales."
"So I called him and he made it happen!" she adds. "Just good, good people who do for one another down here. And they'd be mad at you if you didn't ask."
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Kathie shares Cassidy and son Cody, 31, with late husband Frank Gifford, who died at 84 in 2015. Cody also got married during the pandemic, to fiancée Erika Brown in September 2020.
"I kept my home in Connecticut and love going back there. My son and his wife live there now. My daughter and her husband live down here now in Nashville," Kathie says. "So I have my children back in my life, close to me, in both homes. And one day, the Lord might bless us with little tiny feet running around. That's in God's hands. But for the meantime, life is sweet!"
Michael Kovac/Getty
During an Instagram Live with Shop Today's Jill Martin on Wednesday, Kathie raved about her children, saying both "married well."
"They took their time. Cody was with Erika for eight years before they got married. Cass has known Ben since she was 11 and he was 14. You know, I was friends with Frank for four years before we got married," she said. "I think, if you take the time to get to know someone and learn to love them ... I mean, you can fall in love instantly, I do believe that. That's happened to me at times. But the chances of your marriage lasting and becoming deeper and deeper as years go by, I think, are predicated on a friendship. [Marriages have a] much better chance of lasting if you're friends first."
Of Cassidy and Ben, the proud mom called the relationship "a real love story."
"They met when they were so young. We used to play games at night, all the time. Our families were friends ... and Cass and Ben would never be partnering up with anybody else, ever," she recalled. "We'd go on trips to Israel and Ben would pop himself down on that tour bus right next to Cassidy before anyone else could get there. He knew when he was 14 years old that he was going to marry her."
