Bidens Will Host a White House Wedding Reception for Their Granddaughter

WASHINGTON — President Biden and Jill Biden, the first lady, plan to host a wedding reception this fall at the White House for their eldest granddaughter, Naomi Biden, who is set to marry her longtime boyfriend.

The couple, who met when they were set up by friends four years ago in New York City and who now live in Washington, are in the initial planning stages and have not announced a location for their wedding ceremony.

But the announcement of the reception set up the first wedding celebration of a presidential family member at the White House in more than a decade. On Monday afternoon, Ms. Biden, 28, wrote on Twitter that she and her fiancé, Peter Neal, 24, were “endlessly grateful to my Nana and Pop for the opportunity to celebrate our wedding at the White House.”

Elizabeth Alexander, the communications director for Dr. Biden, said in an email that the reception would be held on Nov. 19. But even the guests, it seems, will have to wait for more details: The couple has not sent out save the dates yet.

“The first family, the couple and their parents are still in the planning stages of all of the wedding festivities and look forward to announcing further details in the coming months,” Ms. Alexander wrote in an email.

Ms. Biden is the daughter of Hunter Biden and Kathleen Buhle, who divorced in 2017, and is a lawyer in Washington, her hometown. Mr. Neal is from Jackson Hole, Wyo., and is the son of Drs. Mary C. Neal and William C. Neal of Jackson Hole. He is in his final semester of law school at the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Neal proposed in Jackson Hole on Sept. 4, 2021.

Ms. Biden and her fiancé, Peter Neal, on their Thanksgiving vacation in Nantucket. They have been together for four years.Credit…Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times

White House weddings — and receptions — held among presidential family members have been relatively rare.

The last reception was held in June 2008 to celebrate the wedding of Jenna Bush to Henry Hager after the two married a month earlier on President George W. Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas.

The last wedding ceremony of a presidential family member was in June 1971, when Tricia Nixon, the daughter of President Richard M. Nixon and Pat Nixon, married Edward Finch Cox in the Rose Garden.

Altogether, nine children of American presidents and one president himself, Grover Cleveland in 1886, have wed at the White House.

The first wedding ceremony on record was in March 1812, when Lucy Payne Washington, the sister of Dolley Madison, the first lady, married Thomas Todd, a Supreme Court justice.