Private party or media event? The US government has to justify itself to the White House over the wedding of President Joe Biden’s granddaughter Naomi.
“It was a private family matter. The press had no access to the wedding,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. The background is a report by the magazine “Vogue” about the wedding – including glossy photos of Naomi Biden in the wedding dress. The photos were taken at the White House the week before the wedding.
The press was excluded from the actual wedding last Saturday. The 28-year-old Naomi and her partner Peter Neal had decided that the festival should take place behind closed doors, it was said in advance. The surprise at the “Vogue” report, which was published on Tuesday, was all the greater. The text is about, among other things, the preparations for the wedding. “Like any little girl, I had a vision in my head – I loved Grace Kelly’s dress,” the 28-year-old is quoted as saying by “Vogue”.
Spokeswoman Jean-Pierre emphasized in the daily press conference of the White House that “Vogue” had no access on the wedding day itself – only before. “This was not a national security meeting. This was not an economic meeting. (…) This was the wedding of a young couple with friends and family. (…) That’s what happened here on Saturday,” she said to a reporter’s question.
The marriage of Biden’s granddaughter was the 19th wedding at the traditional US presidential residence and the first on the open South Meadow, where the president’s “Marine One” helicopter usually lands. Naomi Biden is the first granddaughter of a president to marry in the White House. Previously, it was mostly daughters – like Tricia Nixon in 1971 – or other family members like First Lady Hillary Clinton’s brother in 1994.
