Joe & Jill Biden's Relationship Timeline Is Beyond Romantic

According to an August 2008 profile written by the New York Times, then-senator Joe saw his future wife for the first time in an advertisement for a Wilmington-area park in March 1975. That same night, Joe's brother, Frank, gave him the number of a woman he thought Joe would like. That woman was Jill and — as it turns out — she was also the same woman from the advertisement Joe had seen earlier.

Joe asked Jill out on a date, and they went to see A Man and a Woman at a Philadelphia movie theater. As Jill told Vogue during a November 2016 interview, she and Joe "really hit it off" during that first date — even though they ended the night with a polite handshake. According to Jill (who was senior in college at the time), she immediately called her mother after the date to say, "Mom, I finally met a gentleman." And apparently, the feeling was mutual, because Joe asked Jill to go on another date the very next night.

Things progressed quickly after that, and the couple tied the knot just about two years after meeting... but not before Joe proposed a whopping five times, per Vogue. In her 2019 book, Where the Light Enters, Jill explained that she finally said yes after Joe returned from a 10-day trip to South Africa in the spring of 1977. "I knew that he and the boys had my heart, and we were too intertwined now to protect ourselves from each other," she wrote. "Marriage license or not, we were already a family."

Not long after, the Bidens tied the knot at the United Nations Chapel in New York City on June 19, 1977. In Promises to Keep, Biden explained only family members and close friends were in attendance, which totaled just under 40 people. Joe's sons, Beau and Hunter, stood next to him at the altar. "The way they thought of it, the four of us were getting married," he wrote.

Three years after saying, "I do," the Bidens became a family of five when they welcomed their daughter, Ashley Blazer Biden, on June 8, 1981. In Promises to Keep, Joe said Beau and Hunter were the ones to pick their sister's name.

After several years of serving in the Senate, Joe announced his candidacy for president in June 1987, with Jill by his side. Unfortunately, his candidacy was short-lived, and a little more than three months later, he announced the end of his campaign (with Jill by his side yet again, of course).

In December 1993, Joe and Jill became grandparents for the first time after Hunter welcomed his first daughter, Naomi, who Hunter named after his late sister. The couple has since welcomed six more grandchildren: Finnegan, Maisy, Natalie, Robert, and two new additions whose names haven't yet been revealed.

After his ill-fated first presidential run, Joe expressed a desire to run again in the 2004 presidential election — but apparently, Jill put her foot down. In fact, she was so against his running that she interrupted a meeting discussing Joe's potential candidacy with a very strong message. As she explained in Where the Light Enters, "I was sitting at the pool in my swimsuit. My temper got the best of me. I decided I needed to contribute to this conversation. As I walked through the kitchen, a Sharpie caught my eye. I drew NO on my stomach in big letters, and marched through the room in my bikini."

Four years later, Joe decided to run for presidency again, and this time, he had Jill's support. In January 2007, he entered the 2008 presidential race. Not long after, Jill received a doctorate degree in educational leadership, and her husband was there to cheer her on. "I got to hand her the doctorate on the stage at the University of Delaware," Joe proudly told Stephen Colbert during a December 2020 appearance on The Late Show. "She had two master's degrees. She kept going to school all the time while teaching at night."

Though Joe didn't end up winning the 2008 presidential election, he did win the next best thing. In January 2009, Joe became the 47th Vice President of the United States, and Jill became the only known second lady to have a full-time, paying job. According to the Los Angeles Times, Jill continued to teach full-time throughout Joe's eight-year term as VP.

On May 30, 2015, tragedy struck when Beau passed away from brain cancer. Jill spoke about the experience during her 2020 Democratic National Convention speech. "After our son, Beau, died of cancer, I wondered if I would ever smile or feel joy again. It was summer, but there was no warmth left for me," she said, per Harper's Bazaar. "Four days after Beau's funeral, I watched Joe shave and put on his suit. I saw him steel himself in the mirror, take a breath, put his shoulders back, and walk out into a world empty of our son. He went back to work. That's just who he is."

In 2019, Joe launched his third presidential election, and apparently, the third time is the charm. Joe was elected president, and after taking the Oath of Office on Jan. 20, 2021, Joe and Jill officially became the 46th President and first lady of the United States.

I can't wait to watch these two thrive in the White House.