Last weekend, former president Barack Obama officiated a wedding for a Washington couple.
Dana Remus, the general counsel for the Obama Foundation and Obama’s personal office, married Brett Holmgren over the weekend. Holmgren also served in the Obama administration as a special assistant to the President and as the senior director for intelligence programs on the National Security Council Staff.
Those ties to the former president prompted them to reach out. After all, who doesn’t want Obama at their wedding?
“We had decided to invite him because he was such an important part of our lives, we asked him if he could attend the wedding,” said Brett, according to the Washingtonian. “We also asked him if he could officiate, and he was intrigued with the idea.”
Obama got his license to be an officiant in D.C. and agreed to marry the two of them, but they kept his participation hush-hush until the day of the ceremony. Almost no one knew he would be the officiant, and those close members who were in the know had to be sworn to secrecy.
So you can imagine their surprise when the President Barack Obama showed up!
“It came from his heart”
Family members were impressed with President Barack Obama’s officiant skills, too.
“He complimented them both on their work, on the type of people they were, threw in a tiny bit of humor. He spoke about how their work has been a service to the people and how the two of them compliment each other. Very very sincere remarks,” Brett’s mother Mary Holmgren said, “It came from his heart.”
“He stayed around a little bit for pictures with the family, but he did not want to detract from their day,” she added. “It was a very very exciting moment. Everybody who was there was just flabbergasted and amazed at just what a nice person he is.”