It's No Piece of Cake

Just ask Bess Abell, Lady Bird Johnson's social secretary, who organized both Lynda's White House wedding and Luci's 1966 White House reception. While Lynda would later leave her gown concerns to designer Geoffrey Beene, Abell says, Luci wanted the traditional experience of visiting bridal shops with her bridesmaids. After several secret excursions -- one ruse involved Abell pretending to dress-shop for her sister -- Luci settled on a design by Priscilla Kidder. One problem: Priscilla of Boston was a nonunion shop.

David Dubinsky, then president of the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union, angrily phoned President Johnson, Abell says. A compromise was reached: Pieces of the dress were outsourced to acceptable factories so that the majority of the gown was union made. (Perhaps in a nod to the experience, "The West Wing" aired an episode dedicated to the politics of President Bartlet's daughter Ellie's wedding dress.)

A few similar fiascos, Abell says, eventually led to her receiving a late-night phone call from President Johnson. "He said, 'If there's one mistake that could be made on this wedding and you haven't made it, it's because you haven't thought of it.' " She laughs at the memory now, but in 1968 Abell told Time magazine that working on Luci's and Lynda's weddings had "given her no regrets" about her own decision to elope.

Things were smoother, but no less public, for Lynda's wedding the next year. Reporter Bonnie Angelo, a 30-year veteran of Time, was assigned to stand behind makeshift drapery and record Lynda's every move. "They cut a little hole so I could see every magical moment," says Angelo, who spent the entire ceremony kneeling on the floor behind the partition. "And for that I bought a new velvet dress."

Tricia Nixon's wedding later had its own small foibles. Shortly before her marriage to Edward Finch Cox, the White House released a scaled-down version of the couple's cake recipe. The New York Times took it upon itself to test it and on June 2, 1971, declared it inedible: "mush on the outside and soup on the inside." (The White House pastry chef later cleared up confusion by instructing eager cake bakers to add a paper collar around the top of the pan.)

On Tricia's wedding day, rain clouds threatened to ruin her wishes for a Rose Garden ceremony. Breathhit remembers holing up in a crisis room with her staff, getting weather updates by phone from an Air Force meteorologist -- one resource not available to the typical bride. "Finally she said, 'In 23 minutes you will have a 14-minute break in the weather,' " Breathhit says. "When the go was given, we grabbed the chairs and raced outside, plunking them in the garden."

The drizzle held, for the most part, and Tricia Nixon recalls her father insisting that a little water wouldn't ruin anything. "He said, 'Gentle rain caresses a marriage,' " she remembers.

Even first daughters cannot control the weather. And even first daughters have fathers inspired to wax poetic on the day of their child's wedding.

And from one White House bride to a potential one, Tricia offers Jenna this advice: "Enjoy the happiness of your family and friends. . . . Bouquets are lovely and cakes are delicious," but what matters most about the day is the people attending.

If history is any indicator, what will likely matter most to Washingtonians is getting all the juicy details about the ring, cake, bridesmaids, garter and every other aspect of Jenna Bush's nuptials. Especially if someone does the chicken dance.