Former U.S. President Bill Clinton sits next to his daughter Chelsea and her boyfriend Marc Mezvinsky at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York in September. (Chip East/Reuters)Chelsea Clinton, the 29-year old daughter of former U.S. president Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has become engaged to her longtime boyfriend, Marc Mezvinsky.

The former first daughter and Mezwinsky, a 31-year-old investment banker, sent an email to friends Friday announcing the news and saying they were looking at a possible wedding next summer.

Matt McKenna, a spokesman for the former president, confirmed the engagement Monday.

Mezvinsky is a son of former Pennsylvania Rep. Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky and former Iowa Rep. Ed Mezvinsky, longtime friends of the Clintons. Ed Mezvinsky was released from federal prison last year after serving a nearly five-year sentence for wire and bank fraud.

At the State Department on Monday, Hillary Clinton had one brief encounter with reporters but took no questions.

Chelsea Clinton and her fiancé became friends as teenagers in Washington and both attended Stanford University. They now live in New York, where Mezvinsky works at G3 Capital, a Manhattan hedge fund, and Clinton is pursuing a graduate degree at Columbia University's School of Public Health.

Before returning to graduate school, Clinton worked at Avenue Capital, a hedge fund run by prominent Democratic donor Marc Lasry. She also worked at McKinsey and Company, a management consulting firm.

Since her debut on the public stage as a curly-haired 12-year old during her father's 1992 presidential campaign, Clinton has maintained a fairly low public profile.

That changed in 2008, when the press-shy Clinton stepped out on the campaign trail to help her mother's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Before beginning a relationship with Mezvinsky, Clinton dated Ian Klaus, a Rhodes Scholar she met while studying international relations at Oxford in 2002. Klaus's first book, Elvis is Titanic, about his experience teaching in Iraq's Kurdistan province, was dedicated to Clinton.

Clinton aides, citing Chelsea's privacy, declined to disclose whether she has received an engagement ring or any other details about wedding plans. It will be an interfaith marriage; Mezvinsky is Jewish, while Clinton grew up attending the Methodist Church with her mother. Bill Clinton is Southern Baptist.