Crawford (Texas): First daughter Jenna Bush and Henry Hager, the son of a well-connected Virginia Republican, said ‘I do’ Saturday on President Bush's 1,600-acre ranch near Crawford, Texas.
Jenna Bush married Henry Hager during a ceremony Saturday on the Bush family ranch in Texas.
The president and the bride picked "You Are So Beautiful" for their father-daughter dance, band leader Tyrone Smith of Nashville, Tenn. told The Associated Press. 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 witnessed the wedding ceremony, told AP 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.
The AP reported the 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.
"I had to face some very difficult spending decisions, and I've had to conduct sensitive diplomacy. That's called planning for a wedding," Bush told the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce on March 12.
The plans had been largely under wraps, but they called for gathering by a lake in front of an altar and 4-foot-high cross made from Texas limestone.
"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," first lady Laura Bush recently said.
Jenna Bush told CNN's Larry King on April 24 that the wedding would include "all relatives, our families, really, kind of big. So it's half-family and then half very close friends."
Not all of her friends were expected to be on hand though.
"The only information that I've received is that there are a number of Jenna's close friends who are not being invited to this wedding because, according to them, she would be afraid of their behavior," Doug Wead said.
Wead is a former aide to President George H.W. Bush and author of "All the Presidents' Children."
He says that unlike the pageantry of White House weddings past, such as Tricia Nixon's in 1971, the Texas ceremony would take place away from the media spotlight.
"The Bushes are very private. It's a time of war; it's at a time of economic struggle. ... And this president has high negatives right now. ... It's much more of a low-key event," Wead said.
Wead said another consideration for the wedding's location is "they know that they don't own the White House, that they can't go back.
"It will belong to Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton or John McCain. ... But [Jenna and Henry] will always have Crawford. They won't even maybe have Kennebunkport; that hasn't been decided yet. ... But Crawford, Jenna and Henry can walk through the moonlight and hold hands and say, 'This is where we were married,' and it will always be theirs," Wead added.
The first lady's office kept a tight lid on specifics. But the bride did reveal dress details to Vogue magazine, describing her gown as an Oscar de la Renta creation made of organza with embroidery and beading.
"I'm very, very 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 May 5.
And already, the first lady is joking about names for possible grandchildren down the road.
"George or Georgia ... Georgina. Georgette," she said.
As for the event itself, the ceremony took place in the evening hours in order to spare guests from the searing Texas heat.
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