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Official wedding photos are here
The White House has just released the official wedding photos from the Bush family’s Prairie Chapel Ranch in Crawford, Texas.
We’ve got all the available photos in our slide show here. You can get complete wedding coverage on our Jenna Bush page.
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Video: Scene around Crawford on Jenna Bush’s wedding day
WacoTrib.com videographer Chris Oliver and Waco Tribune-Herald reporter Erin Quinn have put together a fun look at the commotion around downtown Crawford on Saturday as sightseers, tourists, media and others counted down to Jenna Bush’s wedding.
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It’s official: Jenna, Henry are hitched
The AP reports:
Away from the glare of television cameras that have beamed other first family weddings into American living rooms, Jenna’s outdoor wedding at the ranch reflected her family’s penchant for privacy and her preference for the casual over grandiose.
She and Henry Hager said “I do” Saturday at President Bush’s ranch in Crawford where the corn is thigh-high, roads are named Cattle Drive and the Texas flag is painted on the rooftops of barns.
The president and the bride picked “You Are So Beautiful” for their father-daughter dance, according to band leader Tyrone Smith of Nashville, Tenn. Smith and his 10-piece party band, The Tyrone Smith Revue, was asked to do “Lovin’ in My Baby’s Eyes” by Taj Mahal for the newlyweds’ first dance. Smith, who promised the couple a “get down” party, talked to The Associated Press earlier in the week on condition that the information not be released before the wedding.
You can read more on our Jenna Bush wedding page. Click here.
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The daughter-dad song: You Are So Beautiful
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This from the Associated Press:
Band leader Tyrone Smith
Jenna Bush picked “You Are So Beautiful,” the ballad made famous by Joe Cocker, for the father-daughter dance with President Bush at her wedding reception Saturday night in Texas, the band leader said.
The band was asked to do “Lovin’ in My Baby’s Eyes” by Taj Mahal for the newlyweds’ first dance. Smith spoke to The Associated Press on Tuesday about the music plans, on the condition that the reporter honor a request by the Bush family not to release the information before the wedding.
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Anti-gay protesters arrive for Bush wedding
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In Crawford an hour before the wedding of first daughter Jenna Bush and fiance Henry Hager at the nearby Bush ranch:
Six protesters including a child about 5 or 6 years old, all from the aggressively anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., made good on their threat to protest in Crawford an hour or so before tonight’s wedding of President Bush’s daughter, Jenna.
Just before 6 p.m., the protesters gathered in town at the road leading to the 1,600-acre Bush ranch, began waving signs that read “God is your enemy, America is doomed,” “Pro-gay Bush” and “Not blessed, just cursed,” and sang fractured versions of song religious and patriotic, including the Marine song, “From the Halls of Montezuma.”
At one point, they sang “God bless America,” except they dropped the word “bless” and replaced it with “hates.”
While three area law enforcement officers said the group was within its rights to protest, a handful of Crawford residents wasted no time expressing anger.
“I may end up in jail, but if the cops don’t do something fast, we’re going to do this the country way,” Harlan Burgess said.
The Westboro Baptist Church, with its homophobic philosophy, has gained notoriety in recent years for showing up to protest at the funerals of war dead.
Tonight’s protest came on the same day that officials at the nearby Crawford Texas Peace House opted to shelve any protests out of deference to the president’s daughter who, they said, shouldn’t be blamed for her father’s war policies. To protest, one of the Crawford protesters told the Tribune-Herald, would be “tacky.”
Rachel Hockenbarger, 42, one of the Westboro Baptist Church protesters this evening, at one point quoted a Bible verse about “odious women,” then blasted President Bush for raising Jenna to be tolerant of gay people.
Others, however, had their own say in the way of protesting. Thomas MIller, 18, a self-described “counter-protester” from Waco’s Lake Shore Baptist Church, stationed himself across the street with his own sign that read: “For God so loved the world.”
And a number of neighborhood children hastily put together their own tongue-in-cheek sign lampooning the Kansas protesters: “These people are gay.”
A Crawford police officer, noticing the youngsters’ comical sign, told them at one point they were waving it upside-down.
While all this was going on, other vehicles passed by on the way to the Bush ranch, including two luxury buses and an M&M Special Events truck.
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Crawford settles down
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At 5 p.m., the little town of Crawford is seemingly back to normal.
Still two and a half hours from “I do” the visitors and media that swarmed the town’s main drag all day have largely moved on.
The Yellow Rose and Red Bull gift shops have sold out of their “Jenna and Henry” garb, and have taken lists of backorders.
Jamie Burgess, manager of the Red Bull, has sold out of her wedding-themed ornaments, mugs, mouse pads, and keychain/magnets. The mouse pads, she said, proved the hot-ticket item of the day.
Fran Shelton, who does public relations for the Coffee Station, said she noticed diners were keeping their receipts because it had the 5-10-2008 date on it.
Two Cameron residents have parked their sedan in the vacant parking lot across from the Coffee Station. They are waiting, they say, to see something — action, of some sort.
It might be a bus or a van full of wedding attendees. They don’t know. They just want to see something.
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‘Peace to the newlyweds’
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A large red billboard is propped up outside the Crawford Peace House that reads “Peace to the Newlyweds.”
It’s decorated with a peace sign, hearts, doves and the happy couple’s names.
“We had discussed whether we should protest today,” said Rusty Tomlinson, 56, of Dallas. “We decided people getting married aren’t really policymakers. It’s a young girl’s wedding. We just decided to give them a nice, peaceful message.”
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‘House party’ spotted
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Fran Shelton, manager of the Coffee Station, says she served a meal yesterday to one of Jenna’s bridesmaids.
The gas station/convenience store/diner has had a wait for a table all day today, but Shelton said today’s tourists missed what, so far, seems to be the only sighting of someone in the wedding.
“She was just a real cute girl,” Shelton said. “She was three other girls. She said she was in Jenna’s ‘house party.’”
Shelton said she assumed that meant that she was a bridesmaid. She then saw on the news that night that Jenna was calling the wedding party her ‘house party’.
“I could hear her talking, and she was saying she wasn’t sure where the house party was supposed to go,” Shelton said. “I kept hearing her say ‘Jenna’.”
Shelton didn’t have time to chat more about it. Even at 2:15 p.m, there were three parties of visitors waiting for a table in the diner.
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‘Who’s she marrying?’
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A hip-looking couple sat on a bench outside the Red Bull gift shop along Crawford’s main drag.
As the town around them swarmed with anxious visitors stocking up on Jenna and Henry-themed lookpretties, the two clearly didn’t understand the fuss.
“Who’s she marrying?,” the tattooed man asked the woman. “
“Umm…Henry Hager,” she slowly read from a photo in the gift shop’s window.
“It might be Sammy Hagar’s son,” the man replied back.
The woman shrugged her shoulders.
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Mother’s Day weekend in Crawford
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Kandy Myers begged her husband to take her to Crawford to celebrate Mother’s Day weekend.
As her husband wandered the Red Bull gift shop along Crawford’s main drag eating a piece of the “wedding cake” the store’s owner had provided its guests, the 54-year-old stocked up.
Her hands were full of “Jenna and Henry” Christmas ornaments shaped like cowboy hats, boots and Texas longhorns.
“These are for my granddaughters,” said Myers, who came to Crawford from Sweetwater, a town just west of Abilene that’s known for its annual rattlesnake round-up. “My mother bought my daughters’ things from when Princess Diana and Prince Charles got married.
“This is the closest thing we’re going to get, I think.”
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‘Friendly stalking’
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Jency Allison and McKay Sharp finished their finals at Baylor University this morning and came directly to Crawford.
The sundress-wearing seniors giggled at the Jenna and Henry ornaments, mouse pads and keychains at the Red Bull gift shop on the main drag. They took photos with their digital camera in front of the lifesize President Bush cardboard cutouts.
They had no qualms about admitting they were starstruck to be so close.
“He came to Baylor four years ago, and we followed him around all day,” said Allison, a senior in sports management. “It was like friendly stalking. We love the family. And we just think President Bush is the cutest thing in the world.”
The girls planned on visiting the sites and not venturing too far from the main drag all day — in hopes of seeing someone with the Bush family or wedding guests.
“I don’t think we would do this if it was George Clooney or something that was coming to Crawford,” said Sharp, a senior in human resources. “I think it’s a Texas pride thing.”
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Crawford sees tourists, media but not much else
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The main drag in Crawford is parked up with shorts-clad visitors toting cameras around their necks and bags of Bush-themed goodies from the remaining shops.
The marquee in front of the packed Coffee Station, where Jenna Bush herself has come in and eaten fried jalapenos, reads, “Congrats Jenna and Henry.”
Parked next to the Security Bank of Crawford, located across the main drag from the gift shops, is a CBS trailer with a fancy satellite contraption on top.
Other than that, there’s not much going on in this town of roughly 705 people.
A lone Secret Service agent is parked outside the barriers at the corner of Mattlege and Prairie Chapel roads, the intersection that three years ago saw thousands of anti-war protestors lead by Cindy Sheehan.
Now, the friendly agent talks casually with curious tourists and media that trickle by the intersection. He lets them take a picture of the barriers and they drive away.
Three members of the Crawford High School cheerleading team enthusiastically hold up posters directing visitors on their way to the ranch to their car wash, baked sale and garage sale to raise money for their uniforms.
Fourteen-year-old cheerleaders Austin Rogers and Kayla Bruce have lined the streets waving the posters for two days — hoping to take advantage of the increased traffic flow to the town.
“It’s actually been very slow,” Austin said. “Very slow.”
But they admit that standing on the road that leads to the president’s ranch has been well-traveled.
“Yesterday we got to talk to one media person,” Austin said. “And we saw one big truck that looked like it was carrying decorations for the wedding.
“There’s been a lot of black Cadillacs and cops too, but that’s about it.”
Their goal? To get Jenna or the president, himself, to stop and get their car washed. “I’m sure they’re all already in there,” Kayla said.
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Video: White House weddings through the years
The Austin American-Statesman’s multimedia team has put together an excellent retrospective video on White House weddings and how various Presidents have treated them.
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In Like Quinn: Stylin’ for Jenna
So what if her invitation got lost in the mail? Waco Trib reporter Erin Quinn picks out the perfect ‘do for Jenna’s wedding:
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Video: Waco bride shares stage with Jenna Bush
After waiting six years for her wedding, Waco’s Nora Bartosh woke up one morning to find out Jenna Bush had also planned her big day for May 10, 2008.
And to make matters worse, the groom, all eight groomsmen and about 150 guests work in McLennan County law enforcement — the same officers who are on call to assist the Secret Service when the First Family is in town.
Nora’s reaction at the time: “No! There goes half my wedding party.” But Nora isn’t rescheduling. Let Jenna do the rescheduling, she laughs.
You can read more about Nora and her wedding in a Waco Trib story by clicking here. And make sure to check out the video with Nora below:
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In Like Quinn: What to wear?
Waco Tribune-Herald reporter Erin Quinn wonders what exactly do you wear to a presidential family wedding?
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Waco, Crawford Ready For Wedding
The Waco-Tribune Herald had some great stories in Thursday’s paper on the impact the Jenna Bush wedding is having on Waco hotel and restaurants and on the residents of Crawford, Texas.
Crawford low-key about ‘last dance’ with Bush family wedding
Waco nearly booked solid for Bush wedding — and plenty else
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In Like Quinn: Is Crawford Ready?
Waco-Tribune reporter Erin Quinn heads to Crawford to get a sense on how local residents are preparing for the wedding:
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Jenna Bush On Today Show
Jenna Bush, her sister Barbara and first lady Laura Bush were guests on NBC’s Today Show on Tuesday. Here’s some video from their visit:
Laura Bush gives a tour of the ranch in Crawford, Texas:
Laura Bush on her own wedding proposal:
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Sign The Jenna Bush Wedding Guestbook
Use the comments in this blog post to sign the Jenna Bush wedding guestbook and/or to leave a message for the new couple.
President George W. Bush’s daughter Jenna Bush and her fiance Henry Hager will be married on May 10, 2008 at the presidential ranch in Crawford, Texas.
This wedding will mark only the 12th time in history that the son or daughter of a sitting president was married during the presidential term.
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