A Brief History of First Family Weddings

Upon returning from the Philippines, Teddy'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.

The same year her father 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.

Despite turning down Secretary of the Treasury William McAdoo's first proposal of marriage, Nellie Wilson 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.

The family's "golden boy" married Ethel DuPont, the first of his five wives, in 1937 in Delaware. The news of the couple's engagement sparked controversy, as Ethel was an heiress to one of the nation's prominent Republican families. The ceremony was hailed as the "wedding of the decade."

Margaret opted to have her wedding in the same Independence, Missouri church as her parents, though without any of the "hurly-burly." 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.

Luci and her mother planned for a Texas-sized ceremony in D.C. At one point, the guest list included 700 people and her seven-tiered wedding cake weighed 300 pounds. She was only 19-years-old when she married Patrick Nugent.

Despite fears of rain, Patricia Nixon insisted 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, appearing on the cover of Life Magazine in her wedding dress.

After graduating from Columbia University with a law degree, Caroline Kennedy took a job at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where she met future husband Edwin Schlossberg. Jackie Kennedy planned their Massachusetts wedding, and Caroline was walked down the aisle by uncle Teddy.

Amy Carter met her husband while an employee at an Atlanta bookstore where he was the manager. Her wedding outside of Plains, Georgia was as stubbornly low-key as she was. Carter refused to let her father give her away, baked her own cake for the reception and the couple drove off in a car complete with a pro-choice bumper sticker.

America's Prince 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.

Jenna met Henry Hager while he was working for her father's 2004 reelection 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. said, "they're letting me spend money."