By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Naomi Biden, the granddaughter of U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden, was set to be married on Saturday in what will be the 19th time in history the White House has been used for a wedding.
The bride, 28, is a lawyer who has been living at the White House with the groom, Peter Neal, 25, a recent law school graduate who hails from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and is currently working at the Georgetown University Law Center on National Security. They met in 2018.
The ceremony was scheduled for 11 a.m. (1400 GMT) on the South Lawn of the White House on a chilly mid-November day. A luncheon for family members and the wedding party inside the White House will follow the ceremony, ending with an evening reception featuring dessert and dancing.
It is the first part of a festive weekend for Biden, who will mark his 80th birthday on Sunday surrounded by family.
Since former President John Adams moved into the freshly built White House in 1800, the 18 weddings there have typically featuring family members of the president and first lady.
According to the White House Historical Association, the tradition began in 1812 when Lucy Payne Washington, the sister of first lady Dolley Madison, married Supreme Court Associate Justice Thomas Todd.
Grover Cleveland has been the only president to marry in the White House. He exchanged vows with Frances Folsom in 1886 the Blue Room.
Naomi Biden is the daughter of the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and his first wife, Kathleen Buhle.
Jill Biden’s communications director, Elizabeth Alexander, said the Biden family will pay for the wedding activities that occur at the White House, “consistent with other private events hosted by the first family and following the traditions of previous White House wedding festivities in prior administrations.”
Unlike some past such ceremonies, the festivities were closed to the news media.
“Naomi and Peter have asked that their wedding be closed to the media, and we are respecting their wishes. This is something that the couple has decided,” White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Friday.
(Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Josie Kao)
