White House Wedding in the Works?
First daughter Jenna Bush became engaged to Henry Hager Wednesday in Maine.
Aug. 17, 2007 — -- He's the most powerful father of the bride in the free world, but that wasn't enough to stop Henry Hager from asking President Bush for his daughter's hand in marriage.
With the president's blessing, Hager, the 29-year-old former Karl Rove aide, proposed to Jenna Bush, 25, Wednesday in Maine.
The couple met five years ago during her father's re-election campaign. Hager is the son of John Hager, a man stricken with polio and paralysis late in life, who rose to become lieutenant governor of Virginia. Henry Hager has served as a White House aide and is attending the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia.
The two have been dating for five years and in 2005, Laura Bush seemed like a typical cautious parent, downplaying the seriousness of the relationship by saying, "This is not a serious boyfriend. I hate to … I have to be the one to say it on television, but he's a very nice young man."
Apparently he's a nice man who is now a nice fiance.
Since graduating from the University of Texas, Jenna Bush has been busy. She has a new teaching career, spent 10 months in Latin America with UNICEF, went to Africa with her mother and even has two children's books under her belt. Now, at 25, she's engaged.
A Life in the Limelight
It's been a long ride and it's decidedly not easy to come of age in the spotlight.
For high-spirited sister Jenna, the press was constantly on the lookout for gaffes. But as she graduated from college, she seemed to find her footing and her mission — a desire to teach, like her mother.
The couple have not yet set a date, but they have a little more than a year remaining in Bush's second term if they want to be married in the White House, a venue that has only seen a handful of nuptial ceremonies.
In 1971 President Nixon walked daughter Patricia down the aisle in the rose garden, where she was married to Edward Cox.
Four years earlier, it was another White House wedding with President Johnson walking his daughter Lynda down the aisle. And the year before that, Patricia's sister Luci held her reception at the White House after marrying Patrick J. Nugent at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.
"Very few people get married in the White House," said Letitia Baldrige, former White House social secretary. "If this is going to be a White House wedding, it's going to be great fun and excitement for everyone. It's a going to cause a furor of activity."