Nellie Grant, 1874
Ulysses S. Grant's only daughter wed in the White House at the age of 18, in "perhaps the greatest American social event of the nineteenth century," according to presidential historian Doug Wead. Nellie's romance, which captivated the nation with its storybook overtones, began when she met Englishman Algernon Sartoris on an Atlantic cruise.
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Alice Roosevelt, 1906
Upon returning from the Philippines, Theodore Roosevelt's famously boisterous daughter announced her engagement to the much-older Congressman Nicholas Longworth. At the wedding reception, fearless Alice cut her wedding cake with a sword.
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Jessie Wilson, 1913
The same year her father Woodrow Wilson took office, Jessie married Harvard Law graduate Francis B. Sayre in the White House — in the same spot (the East Room) as both Nellie Grant and Alice Roosevelt. The couple's engagement went largely unnoticed by the press, and to make up for lost time, the Washington Post used its entire front page to cover the details of the wedding.
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Eleanor "Nellie" Wilson, 1914
Despite turning down Secretary of the Treasury William McAdoo's first proposal of marriage, Nellie accepted when he asked again. After a quiet courtship — Nellie stole away to the Blue Room to teach McAdoo how to foxtrot during her sister Jessie's wedding without anyone noticing — the two married and soon became a Washington power couple.
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FDR Jr., 1937
The family's golden boy, Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. married Ethel DuPont, the first of his five wives, in 1937 in Delaware. The news of the couple's engagement sparked controversy, as DuPont was an heiress to one of the nation's prominent Republican families. The ceremony was hailed as the "wedding of the decade."
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Margaret Truman, 1956
Margaret opted to have her wedding in the same Independence, Mo., church as her parents, though without any of the "hurly-burly," as she called it. She spent a week in seclusion before the big day, emerging from the Truman home only a handful of times, including once to partake in a small press conference.
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Luci Baines Johnson, 1966
Luci and her mother planned for a Texas-size ceremony in D.C. At one point, the guest list included 700 people and her seven-tiered wedding cake weighed 300 lb. She was only 19 years old when she married Patrick Nugent.
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Patricia Nixon, 1971
Despite fears of rain, Patricia, or Tricia, as she was called, insisted that her wedding be in the White House Rose Garden — the first and only wedding ceremony hosted there. Tricia married Edward Cox, a Harvard Law student, and appeared on the cover of LIFE magazine in her wedding dress.
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Caroline Kennedy, 1986
After graduating from Columbia University with a law degree, Caroline took a job at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where she met her future husband Edwin Schlossberg. Jackie Kennedy planned their Massachusetts wedding, and Caroline was walked down the aisle by her uncle Teddy.
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Amy Carter, 1996
Amy met her husband while she was an employee at an Atlanta bookstore where he was the manager. Her wedding, outside of Plains, Ga., was as stubbornly low-key as she was. Amy refused to let her father Jimmy Carter give her away and baked her own cake for the reception, and the couple drove off in a car with a pro-choice bumper sticker.
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JFK Jr., 1996
America's prince John F. Kennedy Jr. married his girlfriend Carolyn Bessette in secret on an island off the coast of Georgia. Forty guests were in attendance, excluding most of the Kennedy clan — they would draw too much attention. The chapel in which the small ceremony was held didn't have electricity.
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Jenna Bush, 2008
Jenna met Henry Hager while he was working for her father's 2004 re-election campaign. Jenna chose to have a private ceremony on the family ranch in Texas rather than a White House celebration. When asked if he was helping with the wedding plans, George W. Bush said, "They're letting me spend money."
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