With one planning trick, JFK Jr and Carolyn Bessette pulled off the impossible: a secret wedding

It's still an impressive feat, 30 years on, that John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy – one of the most-watched "celebrity" couples of their time – managed to marry in secret without anyone knowing.

The couple exchanged vows on September 21, 1996, in a small and isolated chapel on an island just a few kilometres off the coast of the USA.

These days, in the age of social media, "secret" celebrity weddings are still leaked and speculated about, revealed in Instagram Stories or stumbled upon by onlookers with a camera phone.

But for Kennedy and Bessette – whose tragic love story is being reimagined in the new series Love Story – nobody found out about their wedding until a week later.

Sadly, they only had three years together as a married couple before their untimely death in 1999.

Below is the only real photo of the wedding that was made public.

"It was an incredibly magical moment," the photographer Denis Reggie remembered about the moment that photo was taken.

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"I saw it as it was unfolding, almost in silhouette. It was virtually dark outside. John reached for the hand of Carolyn; she was caught off guard.

"I'm walking backwards in the light rain at dusk, and John does this amazing gesture, taking her hand and bringing it to his lips."

"I was really moved by it and Carolyn's surprise," Reggie added to Vanity Fair.

"I adored her expression – it says it all. The way she flowed in her beautiful dress, moving at full pace, coming down the steps.

"It was happening in real time, and not in any way posed or arranged."

The dress

Bessette's dress was designed by the then-little-known designer Narciso Rodriguez, who was her friend from her days as a publicist for Calvin Klein.

The dress was a pearl-coloured silk crepe slip dress, with long silk gloves and a hand-rolled silk tulle veil.

"It was a great moment in my career but also a beautiful moment in my personal life," Rodriguez said in a 2018 Vogue story about designing the dress.

"Someone I loved very much asked me to make the most important dress of her life."

Though the cut was simple compared to other luxury wedding dresses of the time, it became an instant classic.

In a 2016 interview with Glamour, Meghan Markle named it as her favourite celebrity wedding dress, adding: "I personally prefer wedding dresses that are whimsical or subtly romantic."

Her hair was pinned into a bun and held by a clip that had belonged to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, her late mother-in-law.

Inside the wedding

The couple opted for a very low-key venue: a small chapel with only eight rows of pews, on a tiny island just off the coast of Georgia.

They chose it in the hopes it'd keep them away from prying eyes, just in case news of their ceremony leaked.

Only 40 guests made the list for the wedding, including the groom's older sister, Caroline Kennedy, who was matron of honour.

The night-time wedding was lit only by candlelight, except for the Reverend officiating the wedding, who read by flashlight.

The ceremony was officiated by Rev. Charles J. O'Byrne of Manhattan's Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, the same church where Kennedy's mother's funeral mass was held in 1994.

The wedding reception was then held at The Greyfield Inn, a nine-bedroom mansion near the chapel.

Guests enjoyed a three-tier white wedding cake, covered with vanilla butter-cream frosting and flower decorations, and the couple shared their first dance to Forever in My Life by Prince.

Senator Ted Kennedy, the groom's uncle, made a speech that reportedly moved everyone to tears.

Why so secret?

The couple chose to wed in secret mainly because Bessette was finding it hard to adjust to life in the spotlight.

They hadn't told the press that they were engaged until two days after they were married, according to People.

Guests weren't even given invitations to the wedding until five days before it happened.

According to Jackie Kennedy's former social secretary, planning the wedding "required the skill of a James Bond and the whole CIA. Jackie must be smiling in heaven."

To throw the press off the scent, they arranged travel booking through an agent that would make it look like the couple would be in Ireland during the weekend in question.

Kennedy and Bessette became a popular target for paparazzi when they started dating in 1994, and were constantly photographed while trying to live their lives.

Though the wedding managed to stay a secret, when the couple returned from their honeymoon in Turkey, a huge mass of reporters was waiting on their doorstep.

Though the wedding went off without a hitch, sadly the same could not be said for their married life.

The couple, and Bessette's sister Lauren, were killed in a plane crash less than three years later in 1999.

They were on their way to Kennedy's cousin's wedding when he lost control over the plane he was flying and it crashed into the ocean.

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