It's nerve-wracking enough asking a father for his daughter's hand in marriage. Imagine if that father is the president of the United States.
Jenna Bush Hager shared on TODAY with Hoda and Jenna on Aug. 7 how her husband Henry turned to some divine inspiration to steel his nerves when he prepared to ask her father, former President George W. Bush, if he could marry his daughter.
“Not easy,” Jenna told guest TODAY host Justin Sylvester. “He actually read the Bible.”
Henry's proposal request came at the presidential retreat of Camp David in Maryland over a Fourth of July weekend in 2007. Henry learned that even when you're the president's future son-in-law, it can still be difficult to get a minute with him.
“I was like, ‘Come see the movie,’ or ‘We’re going to go do this,’” Jenna remembered. “We had friends there, and he was like, ‘No.’ He called my dad. He’s like, ‘I’d like to come speak to you.’ He’s like ‘I’m taking a nap. Come in a couple hours.’ So (Henry) had to sit and stew.”
But when it was finally time for the big ask, Henry certainly came prepared.
“And then he had like a seven-point plan of why he wanted to marry me and how he was going to take care of me, and my dad goes, ‘Henry, I said yes. You don’t need to go through anything else,’” Jenna recalled of their conversation. “Laura, Henry’s proposing,’ and that was that. Good thing he did it.”
The couple have been married since 2008 and have three children together — Mila, Poppy and Hal.
It's not like Henry asking the president if he could marry his daughter came as a surprise. Jenna had already delivered a tipsy proposal to Henry five years earlier.
“I proposed to Henry after several cocktails,” Jenna said. “I was 22 years old. My sister was standing with us, we were dancing, and Barbara started shuffling backwards, she was like, ‘What is happening here?’”
Jenna and Henry had only been dating for three months at that point.
“He told me he loved me and I’m like, ‘Me too, let’s get married!’” Jenna said. “He said no, but then five years later we got married. He didn’t say no, he just was like (laughing).”
Once they actually got engaged, it hit home to Jenna how it would be a public failure if it didn't work out.
“Then we got engaged and my parents put out a statement because my dad was president,” she said. “We were sitting in the airport and it came on CNN that we were engaged, and I was like whoa, whoa whoa.
“I’m happy I married him, I have three kids, I adore him, but I was like, ‘What?!’ It felt like so much pressure for both of us.”