Donald Trump Jr. and Bettina Anderson are married
The couple married in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Thursday and were to celebrate in the Bahamas over the weekend, but without the groom's father, President Donald Trump.
Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, married Bettina Anderson, a Palm Beach socialite and influencer, on Thursday in West Palm Beach, Fla., according to Palm Beach County marriage records.
The couple was believed to be heading to a private island in the Bahamas, where a larger celebration was reportedly planned.
Although President Donald Trump said he would not be attending the wedding celebrations, he offered the couple his blessing in a post on Truth Social on Friday. “While I very much wanted to be with my son, Don Jr., and the newest member of the Trump Family, his soon-to-be wife, Bettina,” he wrote, “circumstances pertaining to Government, and my love for the United States of America, do not allow me to do so.”
The president added that he believed it was important for him to stay at the White House “during this important period of time,” before congratulating the couple: “Congratulations to Don and Bettina!”
On Thursday, President Trump had told reporters in the Oval Office that he would “try” to attend his son’s wedding, though he acknowledged the war with Iran and “other things” might preclude those plans. He added that the wedding would be a “small, little private affair.”
The president told reporters he had known his daughter-in-law “for a long time,” adding, “hopefully they’re going to have a great marriage.”
The nuptials arrive just five months after the president announced the couple’s engagement at a White House holiday party, and a month after Anderson held a bridal shower at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s 20-acre estate in Palm Beach.
Trump Jr., 48, a son of Ivana Trump, the president’s first wife from 1977 to 1990, made an appearance at the shower.
There had been inklings that the couple was initially considering a wedding at the White House, continuing a history of presidential children and relatives using the White House for weddings.
There has been ongoing construction of the president’s mammoth White House ballroom, which required demolition of the East Wing of the White House in October 2025, which may have further complicated things. The most recent White House wedding took place in November 2022, when former President Joe Biden’s granddaughter Naomi Biden married Peter Neal on the South Lawn.
Trump Jr. was previously married to Vanessa Trump, whom he wed at Mar-a-Lago in 2005. They divorced in 2018 and have five children together, including Kai Trump, a golf influencer who recently graduated from high school.
Trump Jr., a businessperson who runs the Trump Organization alongside his brother Eric, has plowed ahead with a yawning list of business ventures capitalizing on his family name and proximity to the president.
It is Anderson’s first marriage. She comes from a prominent Palm Beach family and is the daughter of Inger Anderson and Harry Loy Anderson Jr.
Anderson, 39, studied at Columbia University and is involved in philanthropic activities in Palm Beach, having helped found a nonprofit conservation group, Project Paradise, which aims to safeguard Florida’s environment.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.