The funeral and memorial services for Tim Russert, the famed political journalist and longtime host of NBC's Meet The Press, is scheduled for Tuesday.
The private funeral was held at 10am at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in the Georgetown section of Washington.
Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain sat next to each other during the private funeral service.
Among the honorary pallbearers were NBC News anchor Brian Williams, "Today" show host Matt Lauer and Bryant Gumbel. Retired anchor Tom Brokaw greeted the guests.
The public memorial will be held at 4pm at Washington's Kennedy Center. It will be televised by MSNBC and made available for broadcast by other media outlets.
The public funeral arrangements include several rememberances by close friends and family, such as Brokaw, Williams, Governor Mario Cuomo, Maria Shriver, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Russert's son Luke.
The wake services for Russert were held Tuesday afternoon at St. Albans School. Russert's son, Luke, graduated from St. Albans, a prestigious private school in Washington, in 2004. Unlike the private funeral, the wake was open to the public as Luke greeted the guests who came to pay their respects to the legendary journalist.
Hundreds of family, friends, associates and fans joined President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush at the wake.
The arrangements for Russert's burial have not been made public at this time.
Russert, the longtime host of NBC's Meet the Press, passed away Friday after collapsing at the NBC News Bureau in Washington. The cause of death was coronary embolism, which caused a heart attack.
According to the autopsy, Russert's physician Dr. Michael Newman said that Russert "was known to have asymptomatic coronary artery disease [atherosclerosis], which resulted in hardening of his coronary arteries."
NBC announced that the network will not seek a new host for Meet The Press until after the funeral on Wednesday.
According to Russert's obituary, he was born born on May 7, 1950 in Buffalo, New York and died on Friday, June 13th at the age of 58. Russert had been host of Meet the Press since 1991 and was also the chief of NBC's Washington News Bureau.
Russert is survived by his wife Maureen Orth, a journalist for Vanity Fair, and son, Luke, who recently graduated from Boston College.
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