The secrecy wrap around presidential daughter Jenna Bush's wedding was so tight that even the restaurant owner for Friday's rehearsal dinner wasn't told until a day before, media reports said Saturday.
Jenna Bush, 26, and Henry Hager, 30, were to tie the knot at President George W Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch Saturday evening at 2330 GMT.
The press was strictly kept at arm's length - but the White House was expected to release one photograph on Sunday, Laura Bush's press secretary Sally McDonough told reporters in Texas, the Dallas News reported online, the dpa reported.
As American wedding tradition dictates, Hager's parents paid for the Friday night affair - the so-called rehearsal dinner that usually would have included only the bride, her maid of honour and her 14 attendants, the groom and his attendants, and the couple's close family members.
But Hager's family planned for 120 guests - all arranged under an alias name months in advance, the owners of the Range Restaurant, Dave and Katie Hermann, told the Dallas News.
"Mr Hermann says he and his wife did not find out until 10:30 p.m. Thursday that this rehearsal dinner" was for Jenna Bush and her husband-to-be, the Dallas News reported.
The restaurant was about an hour's drive from Crawford, in a historic home built in 1866 in the town of Salado.
Dinner was steakhouse salad, pork tenderloin and lemon-crusted rainbow trout. The dessert was a real country dish - roasted corn pudding.
The bridegroom, the son of a well-entrenched Virginia Republican family, also celebrated his 30th birthday at the restaurant.