- On Saturday, the White House will host a once-in-a-lifetime event. Naomi Biden, the daughter of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden, is set to marry fellow lawyer and political junkie Peter Neal, 25.
According to the New York Times, they share the White House with President Barack Obama and First Lady Jill Biden. Naomi Biden’s wedding will be the 19th in the White House’s 222-year history, and only the second since the turn of the century. The ceremony on the South Lawn will go down in history as well. “I’m not aware of any South Lawn family weddings,” says Stewart McLaurin, president of the White House Historical Association.
A wedding in the presidential family at the so-called “people’s house” in a country without a royal family is often cause for national celebration and public fascination.
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What is the name of the happy couple, and how did they meet?
Naomi, 28, and Peter, 25, met on a date in New York City in 2018 while Naomi was attending law school at Columbia University. “These two fell in love after two days,” friend Asha-Kai Grant captioned an Instagram photo of the couple last year. Except for the 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue address, their lives in D.C. are similar to those of many other young professionals. They traveled to Austria, Italy, Wyoming, and Delaware for the White House correspondents’ dinner weekend.
They share a fluffy brown dog named Charlie and have formed an attachment to first lady Jill Biden’s cat, Willow. Naomi refers to the president as “Pop,” and the first lady as “Nana.” Naomi is the eldest daughter of Hunter, the president’s younger son, and his ex-wife Kathleen Buhle. Her parents met in Portland, Oregon, while working for the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. Naomi was named after the president’s firstborn daughter, Naomi, who died as a 1-year-old in a car accident in 1972, along with his first wife, Neilia.
What is the schedule?
According to the invitations, there will be a South Lawn ceremony at 11 a.m. Saturday, followed by a reception with “cake and dancing” at 7:30 p.m. Some guests were only invited to the evening’s dessert. According to one attendee, cell phones will be prohibited at the event, so don’t expect to see anyone taking selfies on the dance floor. Naomi Biden’s wedding ceremony has been largely kept under wraps ahead of the wedding.
When McLaurin ran into her at the White House recently, he told her that he’d been talking to journalists about previous White House weddings and noticed that the historic nature of her wedding was beginning to sink in with her. “I told her that you would now be a part of White House history,” he says. “She was ecstatic. It’s not like you’re walking down the aisle at your local family church. This is our country’s largest ceremonial stage.”
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