When Jenna Bush walked down the aisle Saturday at the
family's ranch near Crawford, it was the first
presidential wedding in almost 40 years.
No, it wasn't a White House wedding, as many had
hoped. Nonetheless, inspired by the grandeur of the
occasion (The Oscar de la Renta gown! The Lela Rose
bridesmaid dresses!), here's a look back at other
First Family nuptials through the centuries.
The grandest First Family weddings
1Nellie Grant and Algernon Sartoris, May 21, 1874: The
first truly grand White House wedding, between the 18
-year-old daughter of Ulysses S. Grant and an
upperclass Englishman she'd met on a cruise.
It took 75 carriages to carry all the guests. Red,
white and blue flowers were festooned on the walls, up
the staircases, from the chandeliers. The wedding was
lit by hundreds of candles, as the drapes had been
drawn to thwart the hordes of reporters outside.
Her father cried.
2Alice Roosevelt and Nicholas Longworth, Feb. 17,
1906: As a teenager in the White House, Teddy
Roosevelt's oldest daughter was already adept at
scandalizing the public. She wore riding breeches! She
smoked! She drove fast cars! She played poker! She was
a worldwide celebrity!
Alice's wedding was front-page news. A thousand guests
came. Women fainted when Alice appeared on the arm of
her father. There were no bridesmaids. Alice wanted no
chance of being upstaged.
Did we mention that she cut the cake with a military
dress sword?
3Luci Baines Johnson and Patrick J. Nugent, Aug. 6,
1966: The first presidential wedding since the advent
of TV, the event was all over the networks. The
wedding itself was at a church down the street, with a
100-voice choir and 10 bridesmaids in pink gowns and
pink veils. (Ah, the '60s.) The best man was serving
in Vietnam, and his father stood in for him.
Afterwards, the 700 guests moved to the White House
for a reception featuring a 13-tier, 300-pound wedding
cake decorated with swans. The father of the bride
wore formal attire -- something that LBJ had refused
to do for his own inauguration.
4Lynda Bird Johnson and Charles S. Robb, Dec. 9, 1967:
At her sister Luci's wedding, Lynda caught the
bouquet, and she was married the following year. It
was a lovely yuletide affair, with seven bridesmaids
in red velvet. Even Luci's dog wore a red velvet
sweater (but not to the ceremony).
5Tricia Nixon and Edward Cox, June 12, 1971: The world
didn't yet know about the Pentagon Papers when Richard
Nixon's daughter was married outdoors in the Rose
Garden, in the gazebo. It was raining, but thanks to
constant weather updates from the Air Force, the
ceremony took place during a break in the weather --
albeit a half-hour late, and only after attendants had
stripped the plastic sheeting from the chairs and
toweled off the gazebo. Afterwards, the 400 guests
retired indoors to a 350-pound cake. The president and
his daughter danced to Thank Heaven for Little Girls.
The bridal gowns: Look for the union label
Secrecy surrounding the wedding dress is a grand
tradition. In 1906, reporting on Alice Roosevelt's
wedding, The New York Times wrote, "For some reason
best known to the President, but not quite understood
by friends of the family -- especially the feminine
friends -- extraordinary measures have been taken by
Mr. Roosevelt to prevent publicity being given to any
details of the trousseau."
But word gets out.
Although Alice Roosevelt later had a color and a hit
song, Alice Blue Gown, named for one of her signature
dresses, she was married in white satin. It was a
princess-style gown with short sleeves, trimmed in
lace. It had a court train, four yards long, attached
to the shoulders, embroidered with the family coat of
arms. She wore orange blossoms in her hair.
For her 1967 wedding, Lynda Bird Johnson wore a high-
necked gown by Geoffrey Beene. (Some folks remember it
as "the turtleneck dress.")
For her 1966 wedding, Luci Baines Johnson wore a gown
designed by Priscilla Kidder of Boston, who would go
on to design two more presidential wedding gowns.
Luci's was a simple shift, cut slightly higher in
front to offer a glimpse of shoe, with a 9-foot train.
The only problem was that Kidder ran a nonunion shop.
After the head of the International Ladies Garment
Workers Union complained to the president, the actual
dressmaking was contracted out to union shops.
Kidder, known as the Dior of bridal design, started
her own bridal salon in 1945, and introduced variety
and elaborate decoration -- especially lace -- to
wedding dresses. She designed the bridesmaids' gowns
for Grace Kelly's wedding to Prince Ranier, as well as
gowns for Julie Nixon in 1968 and Tricia Nixon in
1971.
Tricia's gown, a bold departure because it was --
gasp! -- sleeveless, was flown to Washington with its
own phalanx of Secret Service agents.
The guest list: Isn't that George Hamilton?
At Luci Baines Johnson's wedding, George Hamilton was
in attendance. He escorted the bride's sister, Lynda
Bird. Although they dated for quite a while -- even
went to the Oscars together -- Lynda eventually dumped
the tanned actor in favor of a future senator.
Guests at Tricia Nixon's wedding included Red Skelton
and Art Linkletter. Notably absent was reporter Judith
Martin, aka the future Miss Manners, who was banned
from Tricia's nuptials after she snuck into sister
Julie's wedding disguised as a friend of a bridesmaid.
In 1937, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr. married
heiress Ethel DuPont -- sort of a Democratic-
Republican Romeo-Juliet affair -- they passed on the
White House in favor of the DuPont family estate in
Delaware. They invited 1,000 guests, but another
650,000 uninvited guests showed up. The governor
called out the National Guard.
The settings: Camp David's not just for peace talks
There have been 17 weddings at the White House, but
many presidential sons and daughters have chosen to
marry off-site. Can you match the wedding with its
location?
1. Alice Roosevelt
2. Luci Baines Johnson
3. Dorothy Bush
4. Julie Nixon
A. National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception,
Washington, D.C.
B. Marble Collegiate Church, New York City
C. East Room, White House
D. Camp David
ANSWERS:
1. C.
2. A.
3. D. It was a quiet second marriage for the daughter
of George the Elder, sister of George the Younger.
4. B. Julie was a fan of the church's pastor, Dr.
Norman Vincent Peale, aka the author of The Power of
Positive Thinking.
The gifts: Thank you for the box of snakes
Presidential weddings bring in gifts from every corner
of the world, both mundane and fantastically
elaborate. Some of the more notable gifts:
Alice Roosevelt received a pair of turtledoves named
for the bride and groom, a strand of 63 matched pearls
from the people of Cuba (worth half a million dollars
today) and a box of snakes (in honor of a pet snake
she had as a girl).
Nellie Grant's wedding haul was valued at $100,000
(more than a million today). It included jewelry,
silver and a dozen punch bowls. Best of all, Walt
Whitman composed a poem for the occasion. "O bonnie
bride! Yield thy red cheeks today unto a Nation's
loving kiss."
Jessie Wilson, daughter of Woodrow Wilson, received a
sack of potatoes, a sack of Bermuda onions, a washtub
-- and a six-carat diamond pendant from the House of
Representatives.
Tricia Nixon received porcelain figures of Don Quixote
and Sancho Panza from the king and queen of Spain, a
silver vase from the emperor of Ethiopia and a bronze
statue of Isis from the president of Egypt.
Luci Baines Johnson received a jeweled Pakistani nose
ring and a set of Texas-shaped cookie cutters.
The president gets married
Three presidents have gotten married while in office,
but only one of the ceremonies took place in the White
House. That was Grover Cleveland's wedding in 1886.
The band was John Philip Sousa's. The cake weighed 25
pounds. A flower arrangement spelled out "E pluribus
unum." (It means "out of many, one," in case you
haven't looked it up in a while. Actually, it's not a
bad motto for a wedding.)
Even better, there were scandalous overtones.
Cleveland married Frances Folsom. Not only was she the
daughter of his former law partner and 27 years
younger than he was, he was also serving as her legal
guardian.
The other two presidents who married while in office?
They were Woodrow Wilson -- who remarried shortly
after his first wife died -- and John Tyler -- who
also married a woman who was 30 years younger.
The curse of the wedding planner
The first presidential offspring to be married in the
White House was 17-year-old Maria Monroe, daughter of
James Monroe, in 1820. She married Samuel Gouverneur,
one of her father's secretaries.
(And so began the storied tradition of presidential
children marrying Beltway insiders. Birds of a feather
and all that. Jenna Bush is doing it. Julie Nixon
might have done it best when she married Dwight David
Eisenhower II, grandson of the president, in 1968.)
The Monroe wedding was a quiet affair, with only 42
friends and family members in attendance. This was not
Maria's idea. Control of the wedding had been seized
by her older sister, Eliza, who managed to tick off
all of Washington society, particularly the diplomatic
corps.
The newlyweds tried to mend fences with a series of
elaborate balls, but most of them were canceled after
a bright light of D.C. society -- war hero Stephen
Decatur -- was killed in a duel.
The groom's side
Only one presidential son has been married in the
White House: John Adams II, son of John Quincy Adams,
in 1828. It wasn't pretty. John had two brothers, each
of whom had also courted the bride -- and been dumped
by the bride. The spurned brothers did not attend.
Sources: Time magazine; Whitehouseweddings.com; The
Hill; Smithsonian National Archives; National Parks
Service; Richard Nixon Presidential Library and
Museum; Missouri Historical Society; Presidential
Wives: An Anecdotal History by Paul F. Boller
Gentle rain caresses a marriage.
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