President calls Jenna's wedding 'spectacular'

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At Tricia Nixon's White House wedding in 1971, President Nixon and his daughter danced to "Thank Heaven for Little Girls." Bush and Jenna glided across the dance floor to "You are so Beautiful" a ballad made famous by Joe Cocker. The newlyweds danced to "Lovin' in My Baby's Eyes" by Taj Mahal.

The bride and groom were reared in Republican families, but this was a bipartisan ceremony.

Officiating was the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, an influential minister from Houston and longtime spiritual adviser to the president, has endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

But while the wedding is now a part of presidential history, it was not a night for politics or publicity.

Millie Martin Bratten, editor-in-chief of BRIDES magazine, said the wedding was a letdown for some who craved a Princess Diana-style event. But she said Jenna's wedding her classy Oscar de la Renta gown and all might even set a trend for future presidential weddings. Bratten foresees future first family weddings that mix protocol and formality with creative individual touches from the bride.

"Instead of the event being turned over to the White House social secretary who follows the strict rules of protocol something that comes from our British heritage of royal weddings this one had a lot of input from her," Bratten said.

As the nuptials drew near on Saturday, tour buses loaded with wedding guests began rolling through downtown Crawford, past souvenir stores that earlier in the day had sold out of Jenna and Henry coffee mugs and mouse pads. An 18-foot rusty metal sculpture of an angel, a gift to the town after Bush's re-election, was adorned with a white veil and bouquet of white flowers. Plastic geese ornaments on a lawn were dressed up with white knit hats and draped in tulle.

Unable to get close to the ranch, visitors settled for snapping photos of the Prairie Chapel Road sign.

Wedding events were so closely held that even the chef who prepared the rehearsal dinner Friday night in a nearby town didn't find out he was working on the first daughter's wedding until late Thursday night.

"It's pretty amazing how they kept it quiet," said Dave Hermann, who with his wife, Katie, own The Range Restaurant at the Barton House in Salado, about an hour's drive from Crawford. In a phone interview, Hermann said the groom's mother, Margaret Chase Hager, used an alias when she called to arrange the event. "Quite honestly, there may have been a handful of people who knew something, but not very early on."

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