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Absent Brother. There will be nothing inconspicuous about the event starting at 11 a.m. Saturday, when the National Shrine's 56-bell carillon thunders into a window-rattling medley of works by Handel, Bach, Purcell and a new composition by Dutch-born Johan Franco. During the hour-long tintinnabulation, the principals and their guests will arrive under the unblinking scrutiny of TV. Inside—mercifully beyond reach of electronic peeping—the company and a pool of newsmen will see the father of the bride decked out in the formal regalia, morning coat and striped trousers, that he refused to don for the presidential inauguration in 1965. While the organist plays Paraphrase on a Trumpet Tune by Henry Purcell, the wedding party—mostly young friends and schoolmates of the bride and groom—will shepherd its charge up a 400-ft. marble aisle to a chancel large enough to accommodate a concourse of cardinals. The bride's attendants will wear pink gowns; the groomsmen will be attired in cutaways rented at $11 each. Luci and Pat, having climbed 50 steps from the street, will be clearly—if minutely —visible to all as they stand at the elevated altar.
To the accompaniment of a 100-voice choir formed especially for the occasion, Archbishop Patrick O'Boyle will officiate at the Nuptial Mass, assisted by two priests: William Kaifer, who was Luci's chaplain while she attended the Georgetown University School of Nursing, and John Kuzinskas of Chicago, who married the bridegroom's elder brother Gerard, now a Marine lieutenant in Viet Nam. Gerard will be best man in absentia; his father, Gerard Sr., will stand proxy for him. And so, after a ceremony of 60 minutes, Miss Luci Baines Johnson of the White House and Johnson City, Texas, will become the lawful wedded wife of Mr. Patrick John Nugent of Waukegan, Ill., a town hitherto famed mostly for the fact that it was the birthplace of Jack Benny.
Honeymoon àTrois. Before the last anthem dies, official Washington will be preoccupied with the massive logistical feat of transporting the newly conjoined Nugents, relatives, friends and selected luminaries over 3.6 miles of public roads to the White House. Greeted by more reporters and television cameras, serenaded by the U.S. Marine Corps Band and Peter Duchin's dance orchestra, the company will sip domestic champagne, nibble at a sumptuous buffet, and attack a 300-lb., 8-ft. cake before Luci, Pat and her ever-present Secret Service escort go off on a honeymoon à trois.
It will be a three-ring affair in every sense. Pat will wear one ring, but Luci will get two diamond-studded bands, one to go on each side of her engagement ring. Instead of one bridal bouquet there will be two, one for Luci to throw and one for her to lay—at her request—at the foot of a statue of St. Agatha, a patron saint of nurses. Lady Bird Johnson, who was married on the day she gave her first unequivocal yes, by a pastor she had never met, with a $2.50 ring hastily bought at Sears, Roebuck, says a touch wistfully: "The wedding day will be something beautiful to remember, and I want Luci to have it."