Editor’s Note: Barbara Chapman is the former aide to the late Governor Ann Richards of Austin, Texas.

Leave it to the Chapmans/Claxtons to have a most memorable, albeit comical, wedding event on the same day, May 10, that Jenna Bush was marrying up in Crawford, Texas.

My husband Willie Chapman and I gave away our daughter Lauren Casey Chapman, a realtor, to Will Herbert Ross III, a fitness trainer, in the hills overlooking Town Lake.

After checking the weather for weeks, at least twice a day, we felt we did not need to rent tents. After all, it was going to be 95-degrees hot and there was only a ten percent chance of rain. We knew it would cool down as the sun set. At 10 AM Saturday, predictions were a bit more dire, but it was too late …

During the ceremony

Although everyone was sweating bullets, the ceremony was beautiful. Casey looked enchanting and everyone seemed so happy. They read the most beautiful vows and then right at the end – just as someone spoke God’s name – thunder sounded loudly. Everybody burst into laughter and ran. The skies fell and unfortunately there was no tent to get under. So all 250 guests were huddled in the garage, under small tents holding Porta Potties, in the breezeways, porches and eaves. People huddled together and got to know each other. The waiters kept serving lots of wine and the bride ran from group to group, greeting people. There was an abundance of laughter.


After the storm

Then it hailed! Golf-ball-sized hail that lasted about four minutes. After that, it quit and the sun came out and everyone trooped back to the backyard where we were treated with the most spectacular double rainbow ever!


Hailstones

The view overlooking the lake is fabulous anyway, but with the double rainbow? It was just too much. We gasped it was so beautiful. I was proud of Casey and the way she handled all of this. Her dress was a mess, her hair was soaked, her makeup ruined and she showed an amazing class and handled it so that everyone else relaxed.

People will have fond and funny memories long after many another wedding party has blended into a boring sunset. The party went on for hours with the entire wedding gang jumping into the pool. Then Casey changed her dress and we bid the couple farewell with sparklers and cheers. They drove away for their honeymoon in a 1966 GTO black convertible. (Very nostalgic for us older folks!)

We would not have done anything differently it seems. I’ve never seen my daughter so happy and so I ask – keep her in your prayers and pray that marriage works, because it sure got off to a fun start.

How Ann Richards would have enjoyed this weather-beaten wedding. Up in Crawford, Jenna Bush was getting married at the same time – but without the hail or the rainbows!