It’s common for American presidents to attend official state visits at the invitation of the queen, but rare for them to attend royal weddings — even when they got invitations — so it would not be unusual if the Obamas did not attend.
■President Truman did not attend Princess Elizabeth’s wedding on Nov. 20, 1947. Truman Library Archivist Randy Sowell said library records show the British government invited "the United States to send an official representative to the wedding." Truman "selected the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, Lewis W. Douglas, as the official representative. Neither President Truman nor first lady Bess Truman attended the wedding" of the woman who is now queen of England.
■President Eisenhower and first lady Mamie Eisenhower were not invited to Princess Margaret’s wedding on May 6, 1960, according to Kevin Bailey, an archivist at the Eisenhower Library. Instead, Eisenhower remained in Washington, D.C., and signed the Civil Rights Act of 1960. A summary of telephone calls maintained at the library show the president had to be convinced by John Hay Whitney, the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, to send a wedding gift to Princess Margaret, Bailey told us. In an April 29, 1960 phone call, Eisenhower told Whitney he was against sending a gift because "no official notification of the wedding had come to him," but Whitney insisted, and "settlement was made on a small wedding ring ashtray," the records show.
■President Nixon did not attend Princess Anne’s wedding to Lt. Mark Phillips on Nov. 14, 1973. Instead, Nixon met with a group of House members that morning, and senators that evening to discuss Watergate, according to the Nixon Library. The New York Times reported two weeks before the wedding that no member of the Nixon family was invited.
■President Reagan and first lady Nancy Reagan were invited to the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in 1981. The president did not attend, but the first lady did.
■Nancy Reagan was also invited to the wedding of William’s uncle, Prince Andrew, to Sarah Ferguson in 1986. Again, the first lady attended without the president.
■President Clinton and first lady Hillary Clinton did not attend Prince Edward’s wedding to Sophie Rhys-Jones in 1999. But then again neither did British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The New York Times reported on the day of the wedding that "the guest list of 550 to the wedding itself inside St. George’s Chapel included no politicians."