U.S. first daughter Jenna Bush was the last in the family to know she was getting married, media reported Thursday.
Months ago, her fiance, Henry Hager, told Jenna's twin sister that he wanted to propose. Then at the Camp David presidential retreat, Hager asked President Bush and first lady Laura Bush for their daughter's hand in marriage.
For weeks, the U.S. president and Mrs. Bush kept their lips zipped.
Then on Aug. 15, 2007, Hager rousted Jenna at 4 a.m. to go hiking on Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park in Maine. "It was freezing," Jenna recalled. "But we got up, and we hiked in the dark for an hour and a half, and then when we got towards the top -- with the sunrise -- he asked me."
Officially, the wedding is a private, family affair. The White House has issued no press releases, but the president and first lady have gradually dribbled out details about the nuptials Saturday at their 1,600-acre ranch in Crawford, Texas.
Jenna Bush and her fiance Henry Hager are seen on sale at The Red Bull, Saturday, May 3, 2008, in Waco, Texas. On Monday, the president disclosed that Jenna will say "I do" near a lake at the ranch -- in front of a giant cross made of Texas limestone that will serve as an altar. The cross will be a landmark at the ranch for years to come. The president said that was his contribution to the wedding that the Bushes are trying to keep a low-key affair.
Doug Wead, a former aide to President George H.W. Bush and author of a book on presidents' kin, calls Jenna's ceremony "the anti-Alice Roosevelt wedding." Former President Theodore Roosevelt's daughter was married in 1906.
Jenna, the 22nd child of a president to marry while their fathers were in office, has come a ways from her dad's first year in office when she had a run-in with the Texas law for underage drinking.
She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in English in 2004.
The groom, son of the head of the Republican Party in Virginia, met Jenna during her father's 2004 re-election campaign. Hager, who graduated from Wake Forest University, worked as an aide to Bush's former top political adviser Karl Rove and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez.
Jenna's mother Laura Bush said Monday that she's not nervous, and the president isn't, either.
Source:Xinhua
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