The bride was serene in traditional white and the groom anything but Saturday as first brother Roger Clinton and Molly Martin recited their marital vows, just weeks before they are to become parents.
President and best man Bill Clinton gave his half-brother a reassuring squeeze of the hand when Roger reached out for a little encouragement as his very-pregnant bride marched up the aisle in a flower-filled tent at the Dallas arboretum.Taking deep breaths and bouncing on his toes, Roger clearly was nervous, but also appeared to be playing to the crowd of about 400 by exercising his flair for the dramatic during the 20-minute ceremony.
Minster John P. Miles, who came down from Arkansas for the occasion, drew a chuckle from the crowd when he announced, "Roger didn't ask for a sermon, but he's getting one anyway. If he'd come to church more regularly, I wouldn't do one."
Miles drew more knowing laughs when he declared that "marrying Roger, there will be bad days. But then, in an equal time warning, he added, "Marrying Molly, there will be bad days."
When the bride turned sideways for the exchange of vows, several members of the audience could be heard remarking at the advanced stage of her pregnancy.
A 30-minute cloudburst, complete with thunder and lightning, struck just as the wedding guests moved from ceremony to reception mode in the same tent.
"We had already decided to get married," Roger, 37, told a local radio interviewer. "The baby sort of sped things up." The couple has been living together in Redondo Beach, Calif., for nearly a year.
The bride, 25, plans to use the name Molly Martin Clinton. She works at a software company in Marina del Rey, Calif.