White House Sketches
White House Joy: The Wedding of Emily Platt
June 11, 1878
Left: White House Blue Room decorated for Lucy Hayes's wedding to Russell Hastings. Right: Illustration of the wedding. Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center.
The niece of Rutherford and Lucy Hayes married Russell Hastings in a quiet ceremony in the Blue Room. That year Miss Platt was used by artist E. F. Andrews as a model for his portrait of Martha Washington that hangs in the Blue Room today. The artist borrowed the head from Gilbert Stuart’s life portrait of Mrs. Washington in later life and the body from the president’s lithe 20-year old niece.
First Lady Lucy Hayes guarded the privacy of the couple opposing any published reports of the bride’s trousseau or a public display of the many valuable gifts received.