Something Extra

There are many perks to spending your days at the White House, including having the option of getting married there. In October, official White House photographer Pete Souza tied the knot in the White House Rose Garden and President Obama attended. And the White House has seen many more nuptials over the years. In 1886, Grover Cleveland became the only U.S. President to get married in the executive mansion. Cleveland, who was 49 and had been a lifelong bachelor, married 21 year-old Frances Folsom in the Blue Room. At the conclusion of the wedding Folsom became First Lady – the youngest in history. Far more common is having a wedding ceremony for the President’s children. The first documented example of this is when Maria Monroe, daughter of President James Monroe, got married in the White House in 1820. Ulysses Grant, Woodrow Wilson, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon are among the other presidents to also have their daughters married at the White House. Other Presidential family members have gotten hitched there, too. In 1994 Hillary Clinton’s brother, Tony Rodham, married Nicole Boxer, the daughter of Senator Barbara Boxer, in the White House Rose Garden. But the couple split in 2000. And back in 1942, Harry Hopkins, the assistant to President Franklin Roosevelt, got married in a simple ceremony in the President’s second floor study. Hopkins wasn’t a family member but he clearly knew the value of having friends in high places – a lesson Pete Souza obviously took to heart.