 For this reason, he was chosen by the Visitation Sisters as their spiritual director in 1831.The following year, Matthews officiated at the wedding of Mary Anne Lewis—a ward of President Andrew Jackson and a Catholic—and Joseph Pageot, the secretary of the French diplomatic legation to the United States.The wedding took place on November 29, 1832 in the East Room of the White House, and signified the first Catholic ceremony in the history of the White House, and the only Catholic wedding in its history.