In a welcome break from two wars, terrorism, soaring oil prices and other woes, US President George W. Bush on Saturday was to celebrate his daughter Jenna's wedding on his Texas ranch. Far from the pomp and publicity of past White House nuptials, Jenna, 26, was to marry fiancée Henry Hager, 30, less than one year after he proposed at dawn atop Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park on Maine's coast.
"Today is my daughter Jenna's wedding day. This is a joyous occasion for our family, as we celebrate the happy life ahead of her and her husband Henry," the president said in his weekly radio address.
"It's also a special time for Laura, who this Mother's Day weekend will watch a young woman we raised together walk down the aisle," he said, hours before the ceremony on the 1,600-acre (850-hectare) estate. With twin sister Barbara as her maid of honour, and 14 young women attendants, Jenna and Henry were to speak their vows at 7:30 pm (0030 GMT Sunday) before a cream-coloured Texas limestone cross that the president erected near a lake on the ranch just for the occasion.
Early in the day, tiny Crawford - population 751 - sat under a gray ceiling of clouds, and the weather forecast called for an partly cloudy evening with 33-degree (91-degree Fahrenheit) heat. Best wishes messages could be seen at a local church as well as some of the tiny town's souvenir shops, which were making the most of the attention, selling 11-dollar computer mousepads and 10-dollar coffee mugs adorned with the happy couple's picture.
Jenna was to wear an Oscar de la Renta gown with matte beading and embroidery, and the ring was to be a Hager family heirloom reset with sapphires, Bush aides confirmed. They declined, however, to confirm that the newlyweds would honeymoon in Europe before settling down in Baltimore, about 45 minutes drive from Washington and the most powerful father- and mother-in-law in the world.
Hager, who is set to receive his business degree in a few weeks, met Jenna during the president's 2004 reelection and worked as an aide to Bush's since-departed political guru, Karl Rove.
The White House has managed press attention with near-surgical precision, claiming that key details are "private," then doling them out either in dribs and drabs sure to stoke media interest, or in splashy exclusive interviews like a Vogue Magazine article that drove early coverage.