On Jenna Bush's Wedding Day, The Whole Ranch Wears a Veil

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Jenna Bush

In the public eye, the first daughter has been painted as both dutiful and rebellious. Has the one-time party girl grown up?

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Eighteen years old and a college freshman at the time of the 2000 election, Jenna Bush often seemed to resent the media scrutiny that came with being young, beautiful and the president's daughter. In one famous image, she stuck out her tongue at photographers; in her social life, she burrowed into a close-knit group of friends who loyally protected her privacy. Her lite-comic presentation with sister Barbara at the 2004 GOP convention (grandmother Barbara Bush, Jenna said, "thinks 'Sex and the City' is something married people do, but never talk about") was electrifying, if only because it was the first time most of the world had ever heard her voice.

It was around that time that Jenna started dating campaign aide Henry Hager, a Wake Forest grad whose father had been the lieutenant governor of Virginia. But the White House maintained its usual no-comment policy on the lives of the twins; Jenna's mother took the standard move-on-there's-nothing-to-see-here stance when asked about him in a televised interview: "This is not a serious boyfriend." According to some friends, Jenna's decision in 2006 to leave her job at a D.C. public charter school for a UNICEF internship in Panama had at least a bit to do with her desire to flee her fishbowl existence in Washington.

Which is why First Twin-watchers were stunned last year when it was announced that Jenna would not only write a young-adult book about poverty and HIV in Central America -- "Ana's Story" -- but also embark on the requisite public speaking and interview circuits. Suddenly, Jenna was everywhere, displaying a natural poise and likability as she parceled out personal anecdotes (Henry's pre-dawn proposal on Maine's Cadillac Mountain; how her dad makes the two of them sleep in separate rooms; how she'd love to meet Chelsea Clinton) in a husky, cool-girl voice.

Now, though, with the wedding, she's pulled on the shroud of privacy again -- which could be tricky, warns Ohio University historian Katherine Jellison.

"People are fascinated by this remaking of Jenna" from party girl to serious educator/advocate type, said Jellison, who has studied American weddings and followed Jenna's trajectory. "That may be creating more curiosity about her."

When Jenna and her mother promoted their new children's book on Larry King's CNN show, Jenna "had a hard time deflecting the personal questions from Larry and keeping him on topic with the book," Jellison added. "She has her work cut out for her as someone who will give a bit of herself and then will be let alone when she wants to be let alone."

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Oh, wait. We're forgetting something, aren't we? Some one, that is. And this is one situation where we really should not forget the groom.

For when the president's daughter marries, it means that one citizen has agreed to take up a mind-boggling role -- son-in-law to the leader of the free world. It's no wonder that so many members of that elite fraternity -- from Alice Roosevelt's husband, Nicholas Longworth, to Tricia Nixon's husband, Ed Cox -- were men hard-wired for politics themselves, going on to distinguished careers in government, diplomacy or law.

"You have an obligation to do nothing that will embarrass, or make it difficult for them to perform the jobs they have to do," said Dennis Revell. "But you still want to relate to them as people and members of an extended family."

Revell, a Sacramento public-affairs consultant, is the widower of Maureen Reagan. He remembers leaving their 1981 ceremony to see a sea of reporters blocking the street.

"Maureen used to always say that I handled the situation better than any man she knew could," he recalled. "A sense of balance and perspective and appreciation for their situation is critical."

At the end of the day, though, the Reagans were simply his in-laws, and kind, loving ones. Revell noted that for Hager the job could be more difficult -- the media attention today is more glaring, the political climate more polarized. On the bright side: "He only has to fill that role for another eight months."