Cate Edwards to Wed Saturday in North Carolina

Cate Edwards, daughter of former presidential candidate John Edwards, is due to tie the knot this coming Saturday.

Ms. Edwards, 29, will wed Dr. Trevor Upham, 30, with a reception to be held at the grand 100-acre countryside home built by her parents, not far from Chapel Hill, N.C.

The occasion will be made all the more poignant as Cate’s late mother, Elizabeth Edwards, was closely involved in early preparations for the wedding before she passed away from breast cancer, two weeks after her daughter and Trevor Upham became engaged. As Cate wrote in the November issue of Glamour magazine:

“I feel so lucky to have shared that joy with her, to have had the time to leaf through bridal magazines together and talk about the wedding. I feel blessed because, in her last weeks, she told me she was comforted to know I’d set forth on my own life path, with someone she loved and respected, and with whom she truly believed I would be happy.”

For the Edwards family, the wedding is a welcome occasion after years of turmoil. As well as the passing of Elizabeth Edwards, Cate’s father John Edwards is facing federal criminal charges of violating campaign finance laws – his trial is in January, having been postponed in part for Cate’s wedding.

While campaigning for president in 2008, Democratic senator Edwards was discovered to have had an affair that produced a daughter.

But, at least on Saturday, the Edwards have good reason to be cheery. Ms. Edwards, a lawyer, and Dr. Upham, a surgical fellow at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, met nine years ago at Princeton University, where they were brought together by their love of mathematics.