“If weddings ceased when we had difficult foreign relations or outright war,” said Judith Martin, also known as Miss Manners, “very few people would be married. It is not considered frivolous to get married.”
Robert Dallek, the presidential historian, said he thought the country would be ambivalent. “There might be some sense of relief and celebration because of the pall that has settled over this society and is reflected in the fact that 70 per cent of the country thinks we’re on the wrong track,” he said. “But they have to be careful that there is not a huge amount of hoopla and excess and self-indulgence, because we are mired in a war.”
Tricia Nixon was married in June 1971, when the country was mired in a different war. Traditionally, White House brides have been married in the formal East Room, where state dinners are held. But she chose the more relaxed Rose Garden. Her ceremony was not lavish by the standards of the day, with the exception of her 355-pound wedding cake stretching more than sev en feet high and five feet across.
The guest list is another minefield. The East Room can seat about 400 people — not a small wedding, but also not big enough to invite every political friend who wants an invitation. (Remember, Jenna’s future father-in-law is chairman of the Republican Party in Virginia.)
“Oh, the lobbying that’s going to go on,” said Letitia Baldrige, the arbiter of Washington’s social whirl during the Kennedy years. During the Kennedy administration, she said, invitations to dinners were so coveted that Senate wives were known to have instructed their spouses, “You better get an invitation or I’m going to leave you.”
Then there is the problem of registry. Not much is allowed these days, because of lobbying rules. Tricia Nixon’s gifts included egg coddlers, dishtowels and a casserole dish, the last from the wife of Donald Rumsfeld, then a counselor to the President. And this was before Watergate. And long since the days of Alice Roosevelt’s White House wedding in 1906, when the Dowager Empress in Peking sent over an array of jewels, silks and ermine robes. Whatever Jenna’s reputation as a party girl, a White House ceremony calls for a certain decorum.
“She’s a feisty young lady, but the whole tradition of the White House will fall down on her,” Baldridge said. “I’m sure she’ll conform.” (Translation: No popping champagne corks off the Truman Balcony.) That means things like interviews and television coverage.
On second thought, Jenna may decide she just wants to have fun. Lobster rolls at Kennebunkport anyone? The Hula Hut in Austin?
