Luci Baines Johnson, the younger daughter of President Lyndon Johnson, was married in 1966 to Patrick Nugent at the National Shrine of Immaculate Conception in Washington as 55 million people tuned in on TV. Her White House reception included a 300-pound cake decorated with swans. Her sister Lynda Bird Johnson was wed at the White House the following year.

About 1,000 invited guests joined Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr. and socialite Ethel du Pont on their special day in Delaware in 1937, her very Republican family having spent years trying to defeat his very Democratic father. Bride and groom tried to bury the ceremony deep in the du Pont family compound, but 650,000 people lined nearby streets, prompting the governor to call out the National Guard, Wead said.

In 1906, another Roosevelt, Theodore's feisty firstborn Alice, steadfastly refused to have bridesmaids at her White House wedding to Nicholas Longworth — Republican, Ohio congressman, playboy. Dubbed "Princess Alice," she didn't want to be upstaged during a ceremony that caused frenzy around the world and included a box of live snakes among the gifts, believed a remembrance of her pet snake as a girl.

Some women in the crush of guests wept at the sight of Alice, orange blossoms in her hair, an 18-foot train of silver brocade trailing behind her, as she appeared in the Grand Hallway on her father's arm, Wead wrote.

Nixon Cox — 25 then and 62 now — had 87-year-old Alice Roosevelt and other past first family brides at her wedding among 400 guests seated just after a rainstorm, prompting complaints from still-spunky Alice that her seat was still wet.

Nixon Cox said she still gets mail from people asking for mementos from that time in her life.

"Every wedding is beautiful, wherever it is," she said. "Any way is a good way if it reflects the love two people share."