By Marilyn Miller
When the Secret Service shows up at the front door of your business…but you don’t know they are the Secret Service (after all they are driving white SUVs)…you just know that they are parking in a fire lane and you’ve got to warn them (whoever they are) that they are going to get a ticket…
“But then all these men pile out, and they start taking photographs of the most beautiful people in the whole world as they get out of the SUVs…and then they start walking to the front door. And I’m thinking, ‘This can’t be my 2 o’clock appointment!’”
That’s how Alicia Adams, owner of Hers Bridal & Special Occasions, described the arrival of a bride-to-be and her party at her downtown business just before the New Year’s holiday.
“I wasn’t in the best of moods…I was stressed from the day before,” when an “almost fire” threatened to put an end to the longtime business on Main Street. According to Alicia’s electrician, the HVAC unit stressed out the old wiring in the breaker box, which was putting out sparks and smoke.
“Anyway, I welcomed them in and we sat down and I started asking the bride-to-be all about her engagement. Hannah is in her second year of law school at LSU in Baton Rouge. They were just the nicest people.”
As it turns out, Hannah’s mom, Kelly Johnson, had booked the appointment with Hers Bridal. “She was a very sweet lady,” Alicia said, quickly interjecting that “It doesn’t matter who you are, though, because every bride is special…”
Who they were is exactly what Alicia DIDN’T know, until someone whispered to her that Kelly Johnson was the wife of U.S. Representative Mike Johnson. Alicia had to step aside to get something for the bride and used the opportunity to look the Johnsons up on her phone. Ah, she had THE Johnson “girls” in her shop in little old Minden, Louisiana, the wife, daughter and daughter’s aunt of the U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson.
Hannah ended up ordering her gown from Hers Bridal. Seems that Kelly and Hannah had been on the phone with bridal gown shops in major market areas like Dallas for days, but they just weren’t satisfied. “So my mom’s like…let’s go back to ‘The Home of Your Dress,’” Hannah told Alicia. Her mom was repeating the Hers Bridal motto.
As it turns out, “Kelly had gotten her wedding dress here,” Alicia added. “So had Hannah’s aunt, Gretchan Lary (also in attendance). It made me feel so good.”
After all the dress-hunting and buying, Hannah posed for a photo with “Lady Blue,” a VW Beetle that Alicia somehow squeezed through the front door of Hers Bridal back in August, and signed her name to an autograph board. After that, she and her mother and aunt posed for pictures in front of the “She Said Yes” sign.
“Then the Secret Service came and picked them up and whisked them away,” Alicia said.
“Where to??” you ask.
“El Jimador in Bossier City,” Alicia said, smiling. “And, yes, I did tell them that we have an El Jimador in Minden. But Hannah said that she didn’t even know Minden had an El Jimador. And anyway, the Bossier City location was her favorite.”
Yep, kinda like Hers Bridal in Minden, Louisiana is now…
