President Biden’s granddaughter Naomi said her I do’s Saturday at the first White House wedding in nearly two decades.
The bride, 28, wore a Ralph Lauren long-sleeve white gown with a high-necked lace collar as she marched down the aisle to the strains of “Bitter Sweet Symphony” by The Verve, CNN reported. A cathedral-length veil billowed behind her in the frosty breeze.
About 250 guests shivered in 40-degree temperatures as the president’s eldest granddaughter — the daughter of scandal-scarred first son Hunter Biden — wed fellow attorney Peter Neal, 25.
Hunter and his estranged first wife Kathleen Buhle escorted the bride to her groom’s side, while the president — who turns 80 on Sunday — walked the aisle twice, guests said: once to take Neal’s two grandmothers to their places, then jogging back to fetch wife Jill, in an emerald green dress topped by a darker green shawl.
The two sat in second-row seats while Hunter Biden, 52, holding 2-year-old son Beau in his lap, took the father of the bride’s traditional spot in the front row.
Sisters Finnegan, 22, and Maisy, 21, served as bridesmaids, wearing floor-length teal gowns and matching blazers.
With press barred from the half-hour outdoor ceremony, at least one photographer’s drone hovered overhead to capture the moment.
White folding chairs were arranged in a crescent formation on either side of a white cloth runner that ran from the executive mansion’s Diplomat Room to a large arrangement of shrubs and white flowers, where a minister stood waiting with the Washington Monument as a backdrop.
The White House’s South Portico was decked out for the occasion with wreaths and garlands studded with white flowers.
There was no tent to protect guests from the late autumn chill. Friends and family members, including former Sen. Chris Dodd and Samantha Cohen, daughter of former President Trump’s onetime personal lawyer Michael Cohen, were given hand warmers as they filed through the White House gates, the Daily Mail reported.
Afterward, the happy couple walked up the curving exterior staircase to the Truman Balcony on the portico’s second level, where they posed for pictures as an assistant arranged the bride’s lace-edged veil dramatically behind her.
The ceremony was the 19th wedding to be held in the “people’s house” in White House history, according to the White House Historical Association. But while many past nuptials have been covered by the president’s press corps, the public is seeing none of Saturday’s festivities – set to include a bridal luncheon and an evening “dessert-and-dancing” reception for 300 invited guests.
“Naomi and Peter have asked that their wedding be closed to the media and we are respecting their wishes,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday.
The two have lived at the White House since August, CNN reported Friday.
Both the Ellipse — the public parkland just across the street from the White House’s South Lawn — and Lafayette Square were closed to visitors Saturday morning to keep prying eyes away from the private nuptials.