The White House Wedding: A Solve-the-Mystery Blog Tour by Radha Vatsal

Radha Vatsal, the author of The Front Page Affair and Murder Between the Lines, has a mystery for you to solve involving the wedding of President Woodrow Wilson and Mrs. Edith Bolling. The following six book bloggers, including me, have published sequential clues to the mystery:

CLue 1: http://katherineschronicle.wordpress.com
Clue 2: http://janereads2.blogspot.com/
Clue 3: https://benjaminlclark.com
Clue 4: jroslynsbooks.blogspot.com
Clue 5: http://mymerriway.com
Clue 6: https://bookishjottings.wordpress.com/

If you would like to solve the mystery, read the clue provided by Radha Vatsal below and visit the blogs above. Good luck!

From Radha Vatsal:

The White House Wedding: A Solve-the-Mystery Blog Tour by Radha Vatsal
At 8:30 PM on Saturday, December 18, 1915, President Woodrow Wilson married Mrs. Edith Bolling. The new Mrs. Wilson would go on to become one of the 20th Century’s most powerful first ladies and shepherd the United States through turbulent times. In the course of this blog tour, I describe four different aspects of their wedding plan: The Location on Jane Reads, Guest List and Attendants on Benjamin Clark, Ceremony and Officiants on J. Roslyn's Books, and Dress and Flowers on My Merri Way. The wedding went off as arranged, except for one significant last-minute change. Your mission is to guess what changed and why. The answer will be revealed in the final blog post. For more on the president and Edith Bolling/Wilson’s relationship, see the Introduction on Katherine’s Chronicle, http://katherineschronicle.wordpress.com.

BLOG POST #4: THE CEREMONY AND OFFICIANTS
The president was Presbyterian, Mrs. Galt was Episcopalian, so they decided that both faiths ought to be represented. They would follow the complete Episcopalian service, which would be performed by an Episcopalian Bishop with the Rev. James H. Taylor, pastor of President Wilson’s Presbyterian church assisting. Rev. Taylor delivered the benediction as the close. When the question: “Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?” was asked, Mrs. Bolling, Edith’s mother, stepped forward and put her daughter’s hand into that of the president’s.

Did any of this change? The number or type of officiants, perhaps? Or the precedence given to one type of service over another? At the last minute, did Edith Galt, as a woman who ran her own business and had been previously married, ask her mother to stand back and in a gesture of independence “give herself” to Mr. Wilson?

Next Up: Dress and Flowers on My Merri Way

The new First Lady and Woodrow Wilson make a dramatic appearance in Murder Between the Lines, the second novel in the Kitty Weeks Mystery series, which features the adventures of bold newswoman Capability “Kitty” Weeks in World War I era New York. For more historical surprises, sign up for the Kitty Weeks newsletter: radhavatsalauthor@gmail.com