All the Details of JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette's 1996 Wedding

As 'Love Story' recreates their wedding on-screen, PEOPLE is looking back on the couple's ceremony, a secret event held at the exclusive Cumberland Island in Georgia

NEED TO KNOW

• John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette tied the knot on Sept. 21, 1996 at Cumberland Island in Georgia
• Details about the elusive wedding were captured in JFK Jr: An Intimate Oral Biography, written by the late JFK Jr.’s assistant, RoseMarie Terenzio, and PEOPLE Editor at Large Liz McNeil
• The couple’s romance and wedding are making headlines again 30 years later as their story is retold on the FX series Love Story

Thirty years before FX's Love Story, John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy tied the knot on Sept. 21, 1996 in a secret ceremony held on the exclusive Cumberland Island in Georgia.

The ins and outs of the elusive wedding that captivated the nation were chronicled in 2024's JFK Jr: An Intimate Oral Biography, written by the late JFK Jr.'s George magazine Chief of Staff, RoseMarie Terenzio, and PEOPLE Editor at Large Liz McNeil. The book features interviews with Gogo Ferguson, the owner of the Greyfield Inn where the nuptials were held, and others close to the couple sharing previously untold details that went on behind the scenes.

"I remember Caroline [Kennedy] said, 'Well, why don’t you just announce it in the New York Times?' Like she did. And Carolyn was like, 'No f—–g way. My life will be hell if I do that. Are you kidding me? By the time the wedding happens, we’ll be stalked every minute,' " Terenzio recounted in the book, before suggesting that the couple tie the knot in Nova Scotia, where there would be no paparazzi.

After visiting the Canadian province, Bessette called Terenzio and said, "Honey, this is the most depressing place ever. I’m not getting married here.” Looking back, Terenzio shared, "It felt like we are just going somewhere that’s remote just to be remote. They wanted to be somewhere that had some kind of connection to them—a place that had meaning."

JFK Jr. first discovered Cumberland Island while he was dating Christina Haag, many years earlier, and had an affinity for the quaint coastal location. "Cumberland was a place where he could be carefree," Ferguson said in an interview for the biography, recalling that when JFK Jr. and Bessette visited the island, Carolyn "fell in love" with it.

"He was reticent to ask me to have the wedding here. He knew my family was very under the radar. Quiet. Our island — there are only like thirty-some-odd people who live here. My family opened their home as an inn — the Greyfield Inn," Ferguson continued.

She then recalled the moment that JFK Jr. and Bessette, who she described as "utterly breathtaking," spent time with her and her husband on Martha's Vineyard, and asked if the Greyfield Inn could be used as their wedding venue. "My husband, Dave, and I talked about it, and we said, this is the only gift that we could actually give them is their privacy. He’d been looking everywhere, and they couldn’t find a place that they could get people to without being noticed," she said.

Dave, a pilot, made plans to get the couple to the island safely, according to the biography, which noted that 90% "of the island [was donated] to create a national park," meaning there would be no paparazzi lingering about. "So it’s just my family within a national park. We finally said, 'Yes, but here’s how it’s gonna go. You’re not telling anyone in your family. No one. And we’re not telling anyone in our family.' I booked the inn. I had to buy a couple of guests out that had booked a year in advance," Ferguson said.

JFK Jr. was "adamant" on having the ceremony at the island's First African Baptist Church. "One of my cousins had told him a story that when Robert Kennedy was shot, Beulah Alberty, who was the deacon of the church, came racing down to tell everyone around the island. And the entire island gathered, and they had a service in that church for Bobby. That really meant something to him," Ferguson recalled, explaining why he preferred to be married in the small church instead of on the Greyfield compound or at the beach nearby.

Charles O’Byrne, the family friend who officiated their wedding, recalled meeting with the couple several times ahead of the ceremony. "Those conversations are largely private, but you know, what I can share is that there was real joy and love between the two of them," he said in the biography. "They were both very excited about this and they wanted as much of the ceremony as possible to reflect them." 

Bessette's iconic custom Narciso Rodriguez wedding dress "was a combination of things that she liked," according to Terenzio. "I think she had seen a bias-cut dress of John Galliano — she wanted something definitely bias-cut. Carolyn was always about simplicity. Something that wouldn’t look dated. She didn’t like a lot of adornments. And when you look like that, you don’t need it."

"It was a great moment in my career but also a beautiful moment in my personal life," Rodriguez, a friend of Bessette's from her Calvin Klein days, told Vogue in September 2018. "Someone I loved very much asked me to make the most important dress of her life."

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The high-profile wedding took six months of meticulous planning to pull off, requiring "the skill of James Bond and the whole CIA," Letitia Baldrige, former White House social secretary to JFK. Jr.'s late mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, told PEOPLE at the time.

On Sept. 21, 1996, just 40 guests gathered inside the church. Among them was Onassis’ nephew, Anthony Radziwill, who served as best man. Also in attendance was Onassis’ longtime companion, financier Maurice Tempelsman. JFK. Jr.'s sister, Caroline, arrived with her husband, architect-planner Edwin Schlossberg, and their three children. Rose and Tatiana were flower girls, and Jack was the ring bearer.

From the bride’s side, Bessette’s mother, Ann Messina Freeman, attended along with her sister, Lisa Ann Bessette, and brother-in-law Michael Roman.

The wedding was followed by an equally intimate party, which was hosted at the inn. "At the reception, we had a DJ. I remember my little stepdaughter trying to teach Teddy the Macarena — it was pretty funny," Ferguson recalled.

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"And then when we were all eating dinner and cutting the cake, Carolyn let her hair down, which was a classic thing with her. It was literal with her. Her hair was either up or down. And it had a lot of relationship to how she was feeling. I remember her nervousness, and when the whole thing was done, we were clapping our hands together, like a pair of high fives," Sasha Chermayeff, a friend of JFK Jr.'s, said in the biography, noting that the only "strange" thing about it all was that "her circle was very well represented. It was just kind of a weirdly John-centric wedding."

Terenzio explained that Carolyn had a small friend group that mostly grew out of her time at Calvin Klein. "She didn’t have as big of a circle as John — because he was John Kennedy."

Anthony's wife, Carole Radziwill, recalled that "Ed made a toast and he said, 'Politics plus fashion equals passion.' He had a T-shirt made that said that on it and he showed it to everyone." She added that "Carolyn’s mom also gave a toast at the rehearsal dinner and it was sort of a cautionary tale. Something like, I hope my daughter has the strength to handle all of this."

Looking back on the ceremony, Ferguson said, "It was beautiful. I mean that one photograph of them standing at the altar — so beautiful. Everyone was very quiet inside the church. We were all in the moment and just joyous at the end." After it was all over, she recalled JFK Jr. telling her, “This was absolutely extraordinary.”

Sarah Pidgeon, who portrays Bessette alongside Paul Anthony Kelly as JFK Jr. in Love Story, opened up about the care that went into recreating such a noteworthy wedding in the sixth episode of the riveting FX series, which debuts Thursday, March 5. "The whole thing was surreal," Pidgeon, 29, told Glamour about recreating the ceremony in front of the cameras. "Being in the chapel that they built to replicate the chapel that John and Carolyn were married in, the candlelight, seeing all of the cast members there as well — it was completely magical."

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