A White House Wedding?

From The Washington Post:

For Tricia Nixon's 1971 wedding, the Vietnam War protesters camped outside the White House agreed to take their bullhorns down the street -- just until the ceremony was over.

In 1906, Alice Roosevelt's ceremony in the East Room after a Grand Hallway entrance was literally swoon-worthy -- several guests reportedly passed out from excitement.

When Maria Monroe (the first White House daughter to marry during her father's presidential term) decided to exclude foreign dignitaries from her 1820 guest list, it caused such a backlash that some speculate it informed the creation of the Monroe Doctrine.

Jenna Bush has a hard act to follow.

A White House wedding is the perfect nexus of celebrity-spotting, couture gowns and young love -- with just enough wonk thrown in to explain even dour politicos' obsession with the nuptials. This newspaper covered Alice Roosevelt's Feb. 17 wedding by eschewing all other front-page news stories in favor of a blown-up picture of the bride, calling her the "daughter of all American people" and her wedding "a blessed union of the hearts and hands such is possible nowhere more than in the United States."

Los Angeles may have the Oscars and New York the Tony Awards, but Jenna Bush in Zac Posen, floating through the East Wing on the arm of her teary-eyed president-dad? Washington could own that show.

Or, at least it could if Jenna decides to marry Henry Hager in the White House -- which would be the 10th such wedding in Executive Mansion history. (Some presidents' children have elected to exchange vows at alternative locations: Newly converted Catholic Luci Baines Johnson, for example, was married at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.) Tony Rodham, Hillary Clinton's brother, married Nicole Boxer in the Rose Garden in 1994. But the last child of a president to wed at the White House was Tricia Nixon more than 35 years ago.


Here's a prediction. If Jenna and Henry are married in a White House ceremony and there are at least three months remaining in President Bush's term the Democrats in congress will find some pretext to investigate the wedding and issue subpoenas.

I'm not joking. I'll bet money that some elected Democrat in Washington will find something about the wedding or the planning leading up to it or to the way it is paid for that he/she objects to and they will state in some public forum that it should be investigated.