CRAWFORD — Saturday, in an Oscar de la Renta gown with twin sister Barbara at her side, Jenna Bush, 26, will marry 29-year-old business school student Henry Hager at her parents' Central Texas ranch.
It's probably as close as Oscar de la Renta will ever get to Crawford.
Celebrating their marriage at the president's secluded ranch is an effective way to keep it private. The property is guarded by local law enforcement and Secret Service agents, with fencing, roadblocks, surveillance cameras, an overhead no-fly zone and more.
Undeterred, the media are sending correspondents to Crawford to cover the wedding, somehow. The usual skeleton crew of White House reporters staying in nearby Waco has been swelled by arrivals from People magazine and Inside Edition.
The wedding also is a last hurrah of sorts for Crawford. The town saw its fortunes and profile rise when Bush built his 1,600-acre ranch there. More recently, like the president's approval ratings, Crawford has fallen on hard times.
The few gift shops still open for the trickling tourist trade are stocked with wedding souvenirs, including mugs with Jenna and Henry's engagement photo.
Despite the best efforts of her parents and the Secret Service to shield her, Jenna Bush has grown up before the country's eyes, from boisterous college party girl to earnest teacher and author.
"We're both really, really excited," first lady Laura Bush said at the White House this week of herself and the president. "We're very thrilled, and, of course, Jenna is so happy, and Henry is very happy. And that makes their mother and dad really happy."
The White House is being secretive about the ceremony, secretive even by the opaque Bush administration standards.
"Be assured that there will be absolutely no readout of the wedding, whatsoever," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Thursday. "This really is a private event for the family."
A few scant details
Still, some details have leaked out. About 200 guests will gather Saturday at a remote location for a security sweep and transport to the ranch.
Jenna and Henry will be married at twilight in front of a limestone altar and cross near a man-made lake on the property.
Jenna's dress is organza with embroidery, beading and a small train. Barbara, serving as maid of honor, will wear a moonstone-blue silk gown with an open back. Fourteen friends will serve in the house party, wearing custom gowns of cocktail length in shades of Texas wildflowers.
"It will be really beautiful," Laura Bush said. "This is the time when the wildflowers are all blooming. And I think it will be a very, very lovely wedding, and it will be very like Jenna and Henry. And, of course, that's what we want. We want what she wants."
Getting married at the ranch was Jenna's idea. It was a move that deprived the nation of a White House wedding. The last presidential daughter to get married at the White House was Tricia Nixon in 1971.
Even during their brief residencies in Washington, Jenna and Barbara never lived in the White House. It's not home to them. And having the wedding at the White House probably would have meant more news media presence.
"Henry and I are far less glamorous than the White House," Jenna told Vogue magazine. "We wanted something organic and low-key."
Keeping things quiet
As for the wedding, the menu, the vows and the guest list have all been guarded like state secrets. Don't bother asking about a honeymoon. (They are going to Europe.)
"It's very much in keeping with her image as first daughter from day one, when her parents made it clear they wanted to keep both their daughters out of the spotlight," said Katherine Jellison, an Ohio University historian.
It's all a far cry from "Jenna and Tonic," the tabloid sobriquet she earned after two college-era busts for underage drinking. Jellison said it's clear Jenna has put some work into improving her public image.
After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin in 2004 with a bachelor's degree in English, Jenna taught at a charter school in Washington, D.C.
In 2006, she went to work as an unpaid intern for UNICEF in Panama. During her time in the region, she traveled around Argentina, Paraguay and Panama, creating photo diaries of the stories of children and adolescents she met there. Her work sparked her book idea for Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope.
More recently, she collaborated with her mother on a children's book.
Future plans
After the wedding, Jenna and Henry are expected to settle in Baltimore, where they recently bought a $440,000 home in a historic neighborhood.
Henry, a former White House staffer and the son of the Virginia Republican Party chairman, John H. Hager, will get his MBA from the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business on May 18. He is expected to take a job at Maryland's Constellation Energy, the state's biggest power company, according to several sources. It's unclear what Jenna's plans are, and the White House isn't saying much.
President Bush, who mugged for the cameras Thursday, practicing his father of the bride walk down the aisle, is said to like the groom and has said he's proud of his daughter. The first lady said both parents are excited.
"It's a very interesting passage of life when you get to that time in your life when your child, first child is getting married — and we're getting, for us, our first son," Laura Bush said. "So it's a thrill, and we're very happy about it."
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chronicle/5766350.htmlI wonder how many DUmp posts will pop up on this
One of our local news channels ran a story last night about the home that Jenna and her husband-to-be have purchased. They named the small neighborhood that it's in and did everything but show the outside of the actual dwelling. They interviewed a local business owner who wanted to put in a bid on the house only to find out that Jenna and Henry were the ones with a pending contract. Of course everyone is excited to see them move in to the neighborhood and I know they will have security but did they really have to show all of that?
