Jenna Bush’s wedding is low-key affair at ranch Posted on May 11th
By DEB RIECHMANN
Associated Press Writer
CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) - Jenna Bush couldn’t see herself getting
married at the White House surrounded by antique furniture and oil
portraits of presidents. She and Henry Hager said “I do” Saturday
at President Bush’s ranch in Crawford where the corn is thigh-high,
roads are named Cattle Drive and the Texas flag is painted on the
rooftops of barns.
The president and the bride picked “You Are So Beautiful” for
their father-daughter dance, according to band leader Tyrone Smith
of Nashville, Tenn. Smith and his 10-piece party band, The Tyrone
Smith Revue, was asked to do “Lovin’ in My Baby’s Eyes” by Taj
Mahal for the newlyweds’ first dance. Smith, who promised the
couple a “get down” party, talked to The Associated Press earlier
in the week on condition that the information not be released
before the wedding.
Smith, who witnessed the wedding ceremony, said afterward the
groom was dressed in a dark blue suit with powder-blue tie and the
bride wore a “very simple and elegant” white dress, but did not
wear a veil.
Smith said Jenna Bush’s paternal grandparents, President George
H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush, spoke during the wedding, though he
could not hear their comments.
Away from the glare of television cameras that have beamed other
first family weddings into American living rooms, Jenna’s outdoor
wedding at the ranch reflected her family’s penchant for privacy
and her preference for the casual over grandiose.
Even without the prying eyes of strangers, Jenna’s marriage to
her longtime boyfriend Henry Hager made presidential history. It
will be remembered as an upbeat moment of Bush’s two-term
presidency beset by terrorism, war and the nation’s current limp
economy.
“This is a joyous occasion for our family, as we celebrate the
happy life ahead of her and her husband, Henry,” Bush said in his
Saturday radio address. “It’s also a special time for Laura who
this Mother’s Day weekend will watch a young woman we raised
together walk down the aisle.”
Jenna, 26, is the 22nd child of a president to get married while
their father was in the Oval Office. Their ceremonies have ranged
from Tricia Nixon’s extravagant wedding broadcast live from the
Rose Garden in 1971 to the 1992 Camp David wedding of Jenna’s aunt,
Dorothy Koch. That one was kept so secret that the press didn’t
find out about it until it was over.
“All of them are different. This one really reflects the
personality of both Jenna and the George W. Bush family,” said
Doug Wead, a former aide to President George H.W. Bush and author
of a book on presidents’ kin.
“If they’d have gone on TV, the wedding would have been shown
all over the world and Jenna Bush would have been an international
celebrity - and she would have been a target. They’re preparing the
transition to private life and they’re not particularly interested
in seeing Jenna Bush become a huge celebrity.”
The media was not invited, but Jenna’s wedding will be closely
scrutinized - down to the matte beading and embroidery on her white
Oscar de la Renta gown.
“The wedding details will be reported on for generations,
influencing both present-day and future brides-to-be,” says Millie
Martin Bratten, editor-in-chief of BRIDES magazine and student of
first family weddings.
Jenna’s twin sister, Barbara, was maid of honor and 14 other
women were in her “house party.” Barbara Bush wore a long,
moonstone blue dress with a low-cut back. The women in the “house
party” were clad in seven different styles of knee-length dresses
in seven different colors that match the palette of Texas
wildflowers - blues, greens, lavenders and pinky reds.
The best man was the groom’s brother, John “Jack” Hager. Also
part of the “house party” were 14 ushers, who walked with the 14
women down the aisle to their seats, but did not participate in the
ceremony.
More than 200 family and friends converged here for the nuptials
on the 1,600-acre ranch where a tent was erected for the
post-ceremony dinner and dancing.
The ceremony began about a half hour or so before sunset. The
couple stood at a cross, made of beige colored Texas limestone,
that was erected near the ranch’s man-made lake. The cross and
altar, made of the same stone used to construct the Bush’s ranch
house, will be a landmark at the ranch for years to come. The Rev.
Kirbyjon Caldwell of Windsor Village United Methodist Church in
Houston officiated.
Festivities began Friday with a bridal lunch, rehearsal dinner
and post-rehearsal dinner celebration in Salado, a tiny tourist
village, which used to be a stagecoach stop. Jenna, her sister and
the first lady were in Salado, more than an hour’s drive south of
Crawford, all day Friday and the president arrived in the evening
by motorcade.
The rehearsal dinner for about 100 people was hosted by the
parents of the groom, who turned 30 on Friday. Hager’s father, John
Hager, is the chairman of the Virginia Republican Party and is
former lieutenant governor of Virginia and former U.S. assistant
secretary of education.
The rehearsal dinner crowd, including the president, then walked
down a street in Salado with the Belton High School Marching Band
from Belton, Texas, to a “Texas-sized celebration” at another
establishment. All the wedding guests were invited to this event.
They were entertained by the five-member Duke Merrick Band from
Charlottesville, Va., which performed classic Texas songs and
original pieces by Merrick, a relative of the Hager family.
The groom’s family also hosted a barbecue lunch Saturday in
Salado ahead of the wedding.
Henry Hager met Jenna during her father’s 2004 re-election
campaign. He graduated from Wake Forest University and worked as an
aide to Bush’s former top political adviser Karl Rove. He is set to
receive a master’s degree in business administration later this
month from the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.
Between February 2005 and January 2006, he was an economic
policy aide in the office of Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez
and regularly briefed the secretary on economic data. “He was
widely regarded as a super star,” said Ann Marie Hauser, press
secretary at Commerce.
After the wedding, the couple is rumored to be honeymooning in
Europe, although the White House would not comment. After that,
they plan to live in a two-bedroom, two-bath town house on the
south side of Baltimore. She plans to return to teaching and he
will work for Constellation Energy, a power supplier based in
Maryland.
This was a big doing for Crawford, home to about 700 central
Texans. They likely will not get a glimpse of the bride and groom,
but the couple’s photo is plastered across coffee mugs, mouse pads,
key rings and other Western White House trinkets for sale at a few
stores along the main drag.
A rusty, metal sculpture of an angel, a gift to Crawford after
Bush’s re-election, is adorned with a veil and a bouquet of white
flowers for the occasion. The sign at the Coffee Station in
Crawford, where Jenna orders fried jalapenos, says “Congrats Jenna
and Henry.” The Peace House, home away from home for anti-war
protesters when they’re in Crawford, set up a red sign that says
“Peace to the Newlyweds.”
The Peace House group decided against protesting on the wedding
day, but about a dozen members of an anti-gay group out of Topeka,
Kan., demonstrated on a road leading to the ranch.
Dick and Kathy Karmy drove 70 miles from their home in Cleburne,
Texas, to visit Crawford on wedding day. “I have a girlfriend in
Washington state and she said `You’ve got to go and get me a
mug,”‘ Kathy Karmy said.
Mary Wood of San Antonio, about a three-hour-minute drive from
Crawford, stopped at a table the Crawford Chamber of Commerce and
Waco Convention and Visitors Bureau set up outside a bank to
welcome visitors to town. Since so many people wanted to know how
to drive to Bush’s Prairie Chapel Ranch, they offered a homemade
map, even though the ranch property is barricaded far from the
entrance.
“I almost came during the week, but then I said it would mean
more to be here on the wedding day,” said Wood, who had a camera
hanging from her neck so she could take a photo of the “Prairie
Chapel Road” sign. “It’s just a big kick to say I was here.”
Associated Press Writer Joe Edwards contributed to this report
from Nashville, Tenn.