White House to host its 19th wedding
WASHINGTON >>“Here Comes the Bride” will be heard at the White House very soon. Again.
Naomi Biden, the granddaughter of President Joe Biden, and Peter Neal are getting married on the South Lawn on Saturday in what will be the 19th wedding in White House history.
It will be the first wedding with a president’s granddaughter as the bride, and the first one in that location, according to the White House Historical Association.
A mutual friend set up Naomi Biden, 28, and Neal, 25, about four years ago in New York City and the White House said they have been together ever since. Naomi Biden is a lawyer; her father is Hunter Biden. Neal recently graduated from the University of Pennsylvania law school. The couple lives in Washington.
Nine of the 18 documented White House weddings were for a president’s daughter — most recently Richard Nixon’s daughter, Tricia, in 1971, and Lyndon B. Johnson’s daughter, Lynda, in 1967.
But nieces, a grandniece, a son and first ladies’ siblings have also gotten married there. One president, Grover Cleveland, tied the knot there, too, while in office.
First lady Jill Biden said she’s excited to see her granddaughter “planning her wedding, making her choices, becoming, you know, just coming into her own, and she’s just so beautiful.”
“So I can’t wait till all of you see her as a bride,” the first lady said during a recent appearance on singer Kelly Clarkson’ s talk show.
Stewart McLaurin, president of the historical association, said special occasions at the White House aren’t soon forgotten.
“If you were to have the privilege of celebrating a holiday there or a special occasion in your life, like a wedding, it is a very memorable occasion,” he said.
Five weddings were held in the East Room, four took place in the Blue Room and two unfolded in the Rose Garden, steps away from the Oval Office.
In June 1971, some 400 guests watched as Nixon walked Tricia down the steps of the South Portico to a waiting Edward Cox, and the couple exchanged vows in a gazebo set up in the Rose Garden for the first wedding ceremony ever held there.