Crawford bustles with visitors on Jenna Bush's wedding night
By ANNA M. TINSLEY CRAWFORD – On a typical Saturday in Crawford, one car might pass through the one-stoplight intersection every few hours.Not so on Saturday.The city is bustling with visitors who want to be close to first daughter Jenna Bush's wedding – and TV and print media who want to cover the event.Several TV satellite crews are set up along Crawford streets and crews from as far away as Italy have visited. Reporters, photographers and TV crews are asking visitors why they wanted to visit Crawford today.“It's fun to see all the different news crews," said Sherry Pennington, of nearby Woodway. "It's exciting."Take a deep breathMary Wood just had to be in Crawford Saturday.She wanted to be able to say she was here today, of all days, the day first daughter Jenna Bush will marry longtime boyfriend Henry Hager about seven miles away at her parents' Prairie Chapel Ranch."I wanted to say even though you can't see it, you can breathe the same air they are breathing," said Wood, of San Antonio. Wood planned to take photos of the city's downtown, buy a few souvenirs and eat at the nearby coffee shop."I'm going to stay here as late as I can," she said. "I just had to be here to say I was here for it."Historic eventEven without the prying eyes of strangers, Jenna's marriage to her longtime boyfriend Henry Hager will make presidential history. It will be remembered as an upbeat moment of Bush's two-term presidency beset by terrorism, war and the nation's current limp economy."This is a joyous occasion for our family, as we celebrate the happy life ahead of her and her husband, Henry," Bush said in his Saturday 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."Jenna, 26, is the 22nd child of a president to get married while their father was in the Oval Office. Their ceremonies have ranged from Tricia Nixon's extravagant wedding broadcast live from the Rose Garden in 1971 to the 1992 Camp David wedding of Jenna's aunt, Dorothy Koch. That one was kept so secret that the media didn't find out about it until it was over.Jenna's twin sister, Barbara, is maid of honor and 14 other women are part of the "house party." Barbara Bush is wearing a long, moonstone blue dress with a low-cut back. The women in the "house party" are in seven different styles of knee-length dresses in seven different colors that match the palette of Texas wildflowers -- blues, greens, lavenders and pinky reds.More than 200 family and friends are converging here for the nuptials on the 1,600-acre ranch that was hit by a brief storm that packed winds up to 50 mph and dropped nickel-sized hail on the area. Thunderstorms were possible but not likely to mar the wedding day.'Texas-sized'Festivities began Friday with a bridal lunch, rehearsal dinner and "Texas-sized celebration" in Salado, a tiny tourist village, which used to be a stagecoach stop, more than an hour's drive south of Crawford. Jenna and her sister and mother were in Salado all day and the president arrived in the evening by motorcade.The rehearsal dinner was hosted by the parents of the groom. He turned 30 on Friday. Hager's father, John Hager, is the chairman of the Virginia Republican Party and is former lieutenant governor of Virginia and former U.S. assistant secretary of education.
Star-Telegram.com  –  May 11, 2008 12:25 AM [GMT]
found in Local: Texas: Dallas-Fort Worth