Tiny Crawford plays supporting role for Jenna Bush’s wedding Posted on May 10th
sort of like a bridesmaid at arm’s length from Jenna Bush’s wedding
Saturday.
All of the action is at President Bush’s 1,600-acre ranch seven
miles outside this one-stoplight town.
Friday night’s rehearsal dinner was even farther away - 54 miles
from the ranch in a town called Salado, meaning the more than 200
Bush family and friends invited to the nuptials might never even
set foot downtown Crawford.
“It’s a private ceremony. It’s an exciting time for the Bush
family,” White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Friday.
“They’re all beginning to converge here in Texas and in Crawford
and I know the president and Mrs. Bush are really looking forward
to this weekend.”
The bride, first lady Laura Bush and daughter Barbara weren’t
even in Crawford most of Friday. Early in the day, the three
attended a bridal lunch for family and friends at an inn in Salado,
more than an hour’s drive south of Crawford. They stayed the day in
the small tourist village, founded before the Civil War, getting
ready for the evening events. The president made his way solo to
Salado.
There the parents of the groom, Henry Hager, hosted the
rehearsal dinner for members of the family and the wedding party at
the Old Salado Springs Celebration Center in the heart of the town
filled with coffee shops, western-style stores, antiques, eateries
and clothing shops.
Then later, all of the wedding guests, some just arriving in the
area, were invited to what was billed a “Texas-sized celebration”
at the Salado Silver Spur Theater in the village, once a stagecoach
stop.
With no hotels in Crawford, local residents are more likely to
welcome tourists who just want to say they were here when Jenna
married her longtime boyfriend.
The locals don’t seem to mind playing a supporting role.
“It’s amazing how many people just want to be in the area,”
said Marilyn Judy, president of the Crawford Chamber of Commerce.
She recounted a call from a woman in Dallas, a two-hour drive from
Crawford.
“I asked `Oh, are you going to be going to the wedding?”‘ Judy
asked. The woman replied: “No, I just want to be in town when it’s
happening.”‘
It wasn’t until late this week that the downtown began to show
signs of the event, which will end up in presidential history
books.
A white banner with red wedding bells on either side of
“Congratulations Jenna and Henry” now stretches across a local
storefront.
A few doors down, a white wedding veil adorns an 18-foot metal
sculpture of an angel, a gift to Crawford in 2004. The rusty
artwork, a side-view silhouette of an angel, is titled “Freedom’s
Angel of Steadfast Love.” It was created by Lei Hennessy-Owen of
Jennerstown, Pa., and given to the city after Bush’s re-election.
For July 4, the angel is decorated in red, white and blue. She
holds a wreath during the holidays. For the wedding, Judy put a
bouquet of white flowers in her hands and sewed her a veil that
flutters in the warm breeze.
“We were trying to think of ways to give something for people
to look at when they came to town - ways to welcome people to
Crawford,” she said. “We thought we’d have the angel dressed as a
bride.”
Some businesses, like The Yellow Rose, are doing a brisk
business selling coffee mugs with the couple’s photo inside a red
heart.
Down the street, a life-size cardboard cutout of a much-younger
Bush greets patrons at The Red Bull Gift and Gallery. There you can
buy $3 Jenna and Henry key rings, a $10 mouse pad emblazoned with
the smiling couple, or a mug with the same photo and date of their
marriage.
The wedding display also features cream-colored ceramic trinkets
in the shape of Texas painted with “J + H.” Jenna’s book “Ana’s
Story: A Journey of Hope” about a single mother in Latin America
with AIDS, and “Read All About It!” a book she wrote with the
first lady, are peddled near packets of Texas wildflower seeds and
license plates imprinted with “Cowgirl.”
Jamie Burgess, manager of The Red Bull, says people often stop
downtown just to ask how to get to the ranch.
Burgess says she tells them that the road leading to the ranch
is barricaded far from the entrance to Bush’s property. Those who
aren’t deterred reply: “We may just try going anyway.”
Burgess doesn’t argue, even though she knows that if they get
too close, they’ll find themselves face-to-face with the Secret
Service or a Texas state trooper.
Valerie Citrano in nearby McGregor, about six miles from
Crawford, also runs a souvenir business selling Western White House
gifts. She spent two days making a wedding cake with buttercream
frosting to serve Saturday to patrons of her husband’s Coffee Shop
and Cafe. The three-tiered white cake, with lemony filling and
raspberry sauce to drizzle on top, is decorated with two Secret
Service agents protecting a White House that adorns the top.
She said local residents aren’t upset about not being invited,
but she’s convinced there are plenty of people interested in the
details. In the weeks leading up to the wedding, the hits on her
business web site have topped 30,000 a week.
“I got one call from somebody in Britain and this morning, one
from Sweden,” she said.