Chapter 167: Wedding Bells
We began to see quite a bit more of the Tusks over the winter. Tessa would come down and she and Marilyn began planning the wedding. Tusker would come down with her, and he and I would drink beer. I think we had the better deal. The wedding was scheduled for Saturday, June 23, and just kept getting bigger. It was sort of like Stormy in that regard, in that it began small and cute, and quickly became a monster that would devour your dinner! Normally a bride would be married at her home church, but that was Our Lady of Grace in Parkton, which was nowhere near big enough to handle what this thing was going to be, and there was nowhere nearby really able to provide the security necessary.
It was decided that we would have the wedding at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle, probably the fanciest Catholic church in Washington. After that, everyone would come back to the White House for the reception. Since this was just too big for a pair of housewives to really coordinate, we brought in the Chief Usher and the White House Social Secretary to actually run it. That way my daughter might actually manage to be married while I was still in office. All I needed to do was get out my checkbook and simply write out lots of zeroes. I don’t know what Tricky Dick spent marrying off Tricia, but even accounting for inflation, I had a terrible feeling I was going to blow that budget to hell and gone!
I checked in with the Social Secretary from time to time to see just how elaborate this thing was growing. They had hired a professional wedding planner to assist them. They couldn’t use Marilyn’s wedding gown, since both the girls were considerably bustier than their mother had been at that age. Instead, Molly was getting a Vera Wang original, who was personally designing the dress, as well as the bridesmaid’s dresses and Marilyn’s and Tessa’s dresses. I didn’t want to think about what that was going to cost! Father Smith, Marilyn and the kids’ regular preacher at Our Lady of Grace, would be doing a command performance at St. Matthew’s, which was somewhat unusual but was eased by a generous contribution (from me; I learned about it after the fact) to the parish’s building fund. We managed to keep the number of bridesmaids and groomsmen down to five on each side, without any of the silly miniature bride and groom nonsense, and the kids eschewed any ring bearer or flower girl — the only members of the family young enough for that sort of thing were their second cousins up in New York, and they weren’t that close to them. Holly was going to be the Maid of Honor, and Charlie was the Best Man, and the rest of the slots would be college buddies and other friends.
The real expense, however, would be in the reception. Since this was purely a personal event, nothing would be covered by the taxpayers except for overall security. The cost was probably going to be at least several hundred dollars a plate by the time it was done. Yeah, I know, I am wealthier than Croesus, but still! When I married Maggie off on the first go, we spent about $75 a seat at the reception, at a country club in Albany, and had a pretty nice time. That wasn’t going to cut it for just the hors d’oeuvres on this thing!
Meanwhile, the list of guests just kept growing. If we invited immediate family only, that was Marilyn and me and our three kids, and Tusker, Tessa, and Bucky. Then move out to the next layer, all of that first level of relatives, Marilyn’s parents and her brothers and sisters, and their families, and the various Tusks and Harpers (Tessa’s family), and the Rottingens. That totaled another 100 people right there! Forget about saying ‘No children!’ since that simply wasn’t done in the Lefleur household. Marilyn and I would never hear the end of it from her family. Add in a few dozen more, for friends of the bride and groom and their ‘plus ones’. Then start adding in friends and guest of the proud parents. For instance, we added Bill and Melinda Gates. Marilyn and I had been at their wedding, and we invited them. Ditto the Dells. The entire Buckminster family was invited, including Captain Buckminster and his fiancé if he could get leave, as well as 2nd Lieutenant Buckminster, wherever he was stationed. Add in my partners at the Buckman Group, Marty Adrianopolis, and my top lawyers. Tusker invited a few people he knew at Honda and Harley. Then, for real fun, let’s add in John and Cindy McCain, and my senior staff, some of whom had been with me since my Congressional days. Then, if I invite one Cabinet member, I had to invite them all. What about Congress and the Senate? I limited that to the Leaders and Whips and the Speaker, and tossed the Dedricks in for good measure.
It seemed to keep growing. By the time the summer rolled around, the wedding was beginning to approximate the royal wedding of Charles and Diana, though hopefully without the same end. Will Brucis had one of his people coordinating the broadcasting of the event. That took me by surprise! Broadcasting?! I told him to sell the rights and maybe I could make a profit on the deal. I contemplated just giving the wedding planner a power of attorney over my bank account. That probably wouldn’t be enough, though.
And then June 23 rolled around. The festivities actually started the weekend before. As the best man, Charlie was in charge of the bachelor party, and he asked me for a favor, so I in turn called in a favor from Jake Eisenstein, who called in a favor from Steve Wynn. We loaded the wedding party onto the G-IV, both the guys and the girls, and flew them out to Vegas. Steve put them into a couple of giant suites at the Wynn, one for the guys and one for the girls, and promised to run them everywhere in limos, so none of the idiots would do something stupid, like driving drunk. We flew them out Friday afternoon, and he promised to load their remains back onto the Gulfstream on Sunday evening. We kept the Secret Service presence quiet and low key. I was reliably informed afterwards that the hangovers should be mostly over by the morning of the wedding, that the arrest reports had been buried, and that the videos were completely deniable. When I saw them the following Monday morning, they all looked back through bleary and bloodshot eyes. Marilyn and I were unsympathetic with our children.
All sorts of strange people began showing up in the White House. I think the wedding planner took up residence somewhere, and Vera Wang and crew wandered through at all hours, with Marilyn or the girls in tow. I had the house on 30th Street reserved for the Lefleur family, when they came down. Otherwise I had several blocks of rooms set aside at the Hay-Adams, Hyatt, and Ritz-Carlton. We also had just about every limo in the city reserved. For the honeymoon, we would load the happy couple into the G-IV and send them to Hougomont, with instructions to the Secret Service detachment to stay away from the house and the immediate grounds, and to keep the paparazzi far, far away.
My daughters decided to have fun with Dad by changing things at the last moment, or at least threatening to. One of the wackier hoaxes was when, four days before the wedding, Molly asked if Stormy could be taught to carry a pillow on her back, maybe strapped to her collar, with the rings on it. Stormy could march down the aisle in front of her. She was part of the family, right? My jaw dropped and I stared, and then stood up and started hollering while she and her sister scampered out of the room, laughing. Marilyn sat there listening to this, and I rounded on her.