Get me to the ranch on time

Jenna Bush and her fiance, Henry Hager, will marry at her family's ranch in Crawford, Texas. (Larry Downing/Reuters File)

I FELT inexplicably let down when I heard that Jenna Bush's nuptials would be held in Crawford rather than my preferred venue, the East Room of the White House. Such a concern may suggest Living Page preoccupation with couture and catering, but as Time magazine noted the week Tricia Nixon married Edward Cox, "a White House wedding, whoever the incumbent or the bride, has a certain nimbus of history about it."

We need that, don't we, a certain nimbus? The Bushes have presented a united front, but do I detect a note of maternal disappointment in First Lady Laura Bush's wedding explanation, that "It'll be small and private, just what Jenna wants. I think it'll be lovely and simple and just perfect"?

What about us, though - the immediate country? Before Jenna and Henry Hager announced their destination wedding, Doug Wead, author of "All the Presidents' Children," guessed in an interview with newsmax.com, "Only finding Osama bin Laden could do more. As the wedding approaches, the popularity ratings of the Bush family will soar. Women will follow this story and they are some of the most disenchanted by the war in Iraq. They will see the president as a father, and a good one at that, and it will give him a reprieve in the popularity polls."

A White House wedding is forever. How else to explain why I internalized the details of Lynda Bird Johnson's December 1967 event - her turtleneck dress, the phalanx of bridesmaids in long-sleeved red velvet, the ramrod posture of Marine Captain Charles Robb? Consider the turning point that was Tricia Nixon's June 12, 1971, ceremony: Premaritally, she favored lollipop Republican fashion complimenting her "porcelain near beauty and a talent for conservative mots" as noted by Time magazine. But in one iconic moment she appeared on the arm of the 37th president, prompting adjectives like "beautiful" and "sophisticated," radiating heretofore unnoticed sex appeal in a deep V-neck, her blond hair swept into a Grace Kelly-like chignon. Legend has it that her dress was personally escorted to the White House by designer Priscilla Kidder and a posse of armed Secret Service agents. Life magazine reported that the dress flew south in its own first-class seat to ensure its safe passage to Washington.

Far-away Crawford reminds me, without a drop of nostalgia, of the premature (her father was only president-elect) wedding of Julie Nixon and Dwight David Eisenhower II at Manhattan's Marble Collegiate Church. True, New York City is not, like Crawford, a suburb of Waco, and, OK, there were 500 guests. Yes, Norman Vincent Peale performed the ceremony and Priscilla designed the dress (granted, now at the Smithsonian). But something's amiss when a first daughter's marriage is relegated to a footnote on whitehouseweddings.com. (Understandably, W's sister Dorothy Bush's second wedding took place quietly at Camp David on June 26, 1992: The groom was a Democrat.)

Jenna would be only the 10th presidential child to be married in the White House. The only chief executive to be wed there was Grover Cleveland, on June 2, 1886. John Philip Sousa's band provided the music and the Connecticut River provided a 20-pound salmon. An arch of flowers over a doorway spelled out "E pluribus unum."

And speaking of mottos, think cake and think Olympics: "Swifter, Higher, Stronger." In 1966, Luci Baines Johnson Nugent's wedding cake boasted 13 tiers and 300 pounds (reception only at the White House; ceremony at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception). Tricia and Ed Cox's was evidently a 355-pound wedding cake, over 7 feet high and 5 feet wide. Will the torch be passed? Will we even know the flavor of Jenna's tastefully scaled rancheroo cake?

A White House wedding is a win-win situation: Jenna - pretty darn cute on a regular day - will look fabulous. Visiting heads of state will look chummy. Choked with emotion, a father of the bride is not required to be articulate. And what stronger argument for immortality than the fact that "Richard M. Nixon and His Family Paper Dolls" is still in print?

Cable coverage would allow me to cross the threshold of the White House. I believe Laura Bush meant to invite me to a Reach Out And Read gala. An alum of the event recommended me, but I heard nothing. When the guest list was published, there was Laura Lippman, albeit a prominent author, taking up my seat, surely a case of mistaken identity.

Still, words might be my ticket in. Walt Whitman wrote a poem to commemorate Nellie Grant's wedding to Algernon Satoris in 1874. It's not my thing, but I could try. . . "Dear Jenna and Henry, who worked for Karl Rove, may your days be as fragrant as con carne and clove."

Elinor Lipman, a guest columnist, is the author of eight novels. Her most recent is "My Latest Grievance."