Barbara Bush on why she wed 5 weeks after getting engaged: 'The older you get, you lose people that you love'

The April 2018 loss of the Bush family matriarch, former First Lady Barbara Bush, was a moment of reckoning for her namesake granddaughter: Don't take any time for granted.

Months later, when the younger Barbara, 36, would begin thinking about wedding plans, she had that lesson in mind.

“That’s the one thing about waiting,” Barbara told People of getting married. “You can have this great career and this great life. But, of course, the older you get, you lose people that you love.”

The fear of unexpectedly losing her grandfather, George H.W. Bush, was on Barbara's mind after Craig Coyne proposed in August. Five weeks later, the two would tie the knot in a small ceremony at her grandparents' home in Maine.

H.W. is in good health and "totally with it," Barbara said, but "he is, of course, 94 years old and misses my grandmother ... We just thought, let’s try to do it soon. We knew we wanted to be married, we’d already made that decision, so we didn’t need months of an engagement."

Photos from the intimate event show H.W. smiling, cuddled under a navy blanket as he watches one of his 14 grandchildren wed.

Also by Barbara's side was twin sister and "Today" co-anchor Jenna Bush Hager, as well as her parents, the former President and First Lady of the United States.

Barbara, 36, is the co-founder and president of the nonprofit Global Health Corps.