Jenna Bush Marries at Texas Ranch

By Amy Argetsinger
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 11, 2008

CRAWFORD, Tex., May 10 -- President Bush gave away his daughter Jenna in marriage Saturday night, in a private sunset ceremony under hazy skies on his 1,600-acre ranch.

Jenna, 26, exchanged vows with Richmond native Henry Hager, 30, before about 200 family members and close friends. Afterward, according to the Bush family's super-guarded plans, they were to gather for dinner and dancing under a tent at the ranch.

It was the 23rd time that a child of a sitting chief executive had gotten married, and the first since 1992, when President George H.W. Bush's daughter Doro wed in a private ceremony at Camp David. Despite a flood of reporters clamoring for information, White House officials doled out only a few tidbits Saturday, citing the family's desire to keep the event private.

"Some details just will not be reported," said Sally McDonough, Laura Bush's press secretary.

What is known, according to details released from the White House:

· The bride wore a white silk organza embroidered gown by Oscar de la Renta, a favorite of the first lady. He also designed a deep turquoise mother-of-the-bride gown; the groom, like the other men in the wedding, wore a suit rather than black tie.

· It was a Texas-size wedding party, with a total of 30 attendants: Jenna's twin sister, Barbara, as maid of honor, wearing a long "moonstone blue" silk gown; 14 other young women in short chiffon dresses, all by designer Lela Rose; Hager's older brother, Jack, as best man; and 14 ushers.

· The ceremony was held outside, in front of a limestone altar and cross that the president had erected by a lake and which will remain as a permanent structure on the ranch.

· The Bushes caught a break on the weather, with a pleasant enough breeze relieving the bad-hair-day humidity that is common in Central Texas this time of year. A wicked storm dumped nickel-size hail Friday night in the area but did no damage to the ranch, a White House spokesman said.

· The ceremony was performed by the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell of Houston's Windsor Village United Methodist Church. Caldwell is a longtime Bush friend who delivered the benediction at both of the president's inaugurations but who in January endorsed Democratic Sen. Barack Obama for president.

· Entertainment was provided by Nashville-based Super T and His Dance Band, which played a White House party in 2003. McDonough described the band as "classic rock, funky rhythm-and-blues, and soul," and sound clips on its Web site indicate the group does pretty hot renditions of "Super Freak" and "Sexual Healing."

[Bandleader Tyrone Smith told the Associated Press that he had been asked to play Joe Cocker's "You Are So Beautiful" for the president's dance with his daughter.]

(But did the couple write their own vows? Will Jenna take Henry's last name? Did the attendants' dresses match the ushers' ties? McDonough offered no answers to these and other questions from reporters.)

The ranch was not a surprising choice of venue for Jenna Bush, who grew up in Texas and never considered Washington home. Located several miles from Crawford and off-limits to journalists and sightseers, it also offered a much higher level of privacy than they could have gotten away with at the taxpayer-owned White House. The last presidential child married at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. was Tricia Nixon in 1971.

Hager, the son of former Virginia lieutenant governor John Hager, is an MBA candidate at the University of Virginia who is expected to take a job at Baltimore's Constellation Energy after his graduation next week. In March, the couple closed on a home in south Baltimore.

On Friday night, the White House said, the Hager family hosted a rehearsal dinner -- also a celebration of the groom's 30th birthday -- for about 100 guests in Salado, Tex., another small town more than an hour's drive from here, at the Old Salado Springs Celebration Center.

After dinner, the party was escorted down the street by the Belton High School marching band to a second, larger bash at the Salado Silver Spur Theater, open to all the wedding's invited guests. The Duke Merrick Band -- a five-piece combo from Charlottesville, Va., whose frontman is a Hager cousin -- performed "classic Texas" music, McDonough said.

What comes next for the couple is unclear. There has been talk of a European honeymoon, but Jenna is still in book-promotion mode for "Read All About It!," the children's book she wrote with her mother, and she has appearances lined up in California later this month.

The president is expected to return to Washington this afternoon.