JFK Jr. & Carolyn's Wedding: The Lost Tapes | Full HD Documentary | Documentary Central

so now my wife and i prepare for a new administration and for a new baby thank you if you want to call the kennedy's royalty john was the crown prince he had an effect on two maybe three generations of america he was america's son john fitzgerald kennedy jr he was one of the most famous men of his time he was also one of the most eligible bachelors in the world his charm and good looks melted hearts the answers to the most frequently asked personal questions are yes no we're merely good friends maybe someday but not new jersey but that all changed the day this american prince found his princess carolyn bessette i could tell this was different this was deeper more mature what he really loved about her was her edginess she pushed back which was good for him but the more obsessed the world became with the couple the more determined they were to do things their way on september 21st 1996 john f kennedy jr and carolyn bessette were married in a secret ceremony hidden away from the eyes of the world it was videotaped by his best friend billy noonan now more than two decades later billy is releasing this lost footage for the world to see for the very first time as we celebrate the love of america's royal couple who were taken far too soon roll one take one if it's okay i would love to show you some of billy's video okay this is our first time seeing this oh that's incredible here we go you guys ready for all of this you better believe it i'm so excited nothing like arriving by truck to your wedding right just after john was born and it's going to be short john [Laughter] a great little turn yeah this was a secret ceremony run run like the win everyone knew about it afterwards but nobody has watched it this is amazing changed my life in a way that i never thought was possible and just to celebrate an american love story my god [Music] that the world never got to see what i'm feeling about this video is that if you want a perfect example of their love this is it [Music] it's thursday september 19 1996. john f kennedy jr has revealed to his closest friends that he's going to marry his fiance carolyn bessette in secret and he's asked them to meet him at the teterboro airport to board a private jet here we are at millionaire the jet of florida and over here [Music] many of these guests were given only days notice and not one of them has a clue where they're headed or where this wedding will take place that is biggie so that's john in teterboro and we knew there was a wedding but we didn't know when or where it was almost like they were um they were eloping and they brought their nearest and dearest with them that's what it felt like anthony you're all set now long before the days of smart phones and high definition cameras billy is capturing the events on an early 1990s hand-held camcorder which he brought along at john's request you know john and i have been close friends for 25 years and he said give me the camera for my bachelor partner and it sort of became a talisman or a mascot documenting these milestones in our friends lives so he said to me you still have that videotape we gave you and i said yeah and he said well bring it down he said i brought it down there not knowing what i'm doing if i were a videotographer it never would have looked like that it was like you know haphazard it's light it's dark it's the audio's not right but it plays into the whole thing of the weekend was that nothing was scripted as billy continues to document the events he like the rest of john's friends still has no idea where they're headed i said is it in the united states and he said yes and when i got on the plane it just said destination florida here we go and i said so we're going to florida it was like well we're not really going to florida and i was like well where are we going the whole thing was so surreal but we all trusted john because he was pulling off quite a but to understand the reasons behind all this secrecy we first have to go back to the very beginning [Applause] john f kennedy selected as the 35th president of the united states it is the climax of one of the closest most dramatic elections in american history so now uh my wife and i prepare for a new administration and for a new baby thank you on november 25th 1960 john fitzgerald kennedy jr was born to the newly elected president and first lady of the united states not sure you could ever duplicate his life i mean he was born into secret service protection grew up in the white house his father was the most powerful man in the world at one of the most delicate times in modern history as the only son of this young and charismatic new leader he immediately captured the hearts of the nation i remember the pictures under the desk in the oval office i mean who ever saw anything like that john junior's family would quickly become idolized by the nation the kennedys really gave this sort of aspirational glamour it was the dawn of the 1960s and people were really looking towards the future and felt sort of invincible almost we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy but because they are hard the kennedys were really a symbol of that they were this young family and a beautiful wife handsome husband and they had two adorable children and it just was this picture of american perfection there was something about them that had that quality that you often get with royalty [Music] tragically this american fairy tale would be cut short something has happened on november 22nd 1963 this little boy would lose his father president kennedy died at 1 pm central standard time some 38 minutes ago exactly three years after john jr entered the world he would bid his father one final farewell a gentle reminder from his mother and john john celebrates his third birthday with a soldier's farewell to his father and this little boy's stoic salute would forever bond him to the hearts and minds of the nation he was one of us because what we saw in him was we saw ourselves we saw our own humanity and that is sort of the magic of john kennedy jr [Music] after president kennedy's death jackie was left to raise two children by herself jacqueline kennedy of course she was beautiful of course she had incredible personal style she was well educated but i think probably her most important role is being a great mother you know these children grew up under the spotlight but she did as much as anything to protect her children to make them as normal and as genuine as possible it is rather hard with children there's so little privacy i don't mind for myself but i think it's very hard with them how can i bring up normal children if they can't be treated that way she was of course super strong because she had been through so much and that was something that john had a tremendous amount of respect for she gave him self-worth self-esteem self-confidence but humility too she was a very centered and very cool woman and when she was mad at him she got mad at him when he did something right she complimented him like any parent should instructing their children to be good kids and in spite of all the attention that they had to go through they grew up abnormally normal john and i bonded quite quickly because we're both new students in 11th grade neither one of us knew anybody else and we spent a lot of time for that reason we were put in the same classes and we just became buddies we both had a very similar sense of humor sense of play you know we had some fun over the course of his life evading paparazzi and sneaking around and jumping over shrubbery and hiding oh my god yeah i mean he had such a sense of mischief stuff that we used to do the gags that we played on each other i mean the trouble that he would start but he could always get himself out of it and he said it was more fun getting out of it than actually getting into it yeah that sounds about right when i met john he was kind of a little awkward a little clumsy a little not you know so slick [Music] but then he grew up really grew up in the world he started to realize that he's just like this kind of gorgeous like full-grown man now i knew john when he was an awkward teenager and he morphed into this sort of you know stud [Music] most sexiest man alive once john came of age he went from a nation's son thank you thank you very much to the world's obsession he didn't know how to handle it he didn't want to handle it he was embarrassed by it the answers to the most frequently asked personal questions are yes no we're merely good friends honest she's my cousin from rhode island i've worn both maybe someday but not new jersey you know i knew john and had hung around him quite a bit and walking into any place in new york with john kennedy it was like walking into heaven with god that's how huge he was someone told me that at one point he was the most recognized male face on earth dating girls was not difficult for john which i found you know infinitely annoying but he had had relationships with like adoring high school girls and then when he got out of college then the models the ones that were popping up on the covers of magazines back in the 80s we'd all seen john with the madonnas and a lot of women that were outstandingly beautiful yeah women just loved him he was beautiful and he had all of these wonderful qualities john was funny sports car two girls dude he had an open nature which was warm he's got the looks he's got the money and he's got a great future he could be the next president a romantic at heart this most eligible of bachelors secretly yearned for something more and he would find just that in a beautiful brilliant young woman named carolyn bessette growing up the youngest of three sisters in greenwich connecticut carolyn's early life was shaped in large part by her mother carolyn's parents divorced when she was young and i think she was very heavily influenced by the fact that her mom got on with her life you know that her mom wasn't ruined by the divorce was important to her i think it was a family trait in the best that you weren't a shrinking violet and she was very self-confident but young carolyn was defined not only by her strength but also by her charisma and effortless charm in high school she was well liked and you know very beautiful and you know stylish she was always the most popular person in the room upon graduating high school in 1983 carolyn enrolled at boston university and soon discovered the first love of her life fashion not long after graduation she would get her first big break she was working at a local calvin klein store in boston and one of the executives noticed her and said oh my gosh she is gorgeous and confident and has her own personal style that more minimal chic look which was really the look of the brand so calvin klein wanted to kind of harness that and said come to new york work in our store here on madison avenue if you were in the fashion world in new york city it's where the sexy people were new york city in the early 90s was incredible and calvin klein was an icon in fashion he was the first designer to bring in really modern sleek elegant looks in america carolyn's talent style and savvy quickly shot her to the top of new york's fashion scene pretty soon she found herself really being kind of an elite stylist to people like diane sawyer and annette benning before long she was a calvin klein executive working side by side with the man and then we'll tell himself how to roll and at a quite young age she was making a six figure salary living that you know fashion dream in new york city but as much as she impressed in her professional life it was her personal side that truly captivated my agent called me and said there's a job at calvin klein so she connected me with the booker at calvin klein at the time which was carolyn and i met her and she hired me and we became friends she was just a great person to work with and had great style and great taste but i think what really drew me to carolyn was that she was so kind she wasn't narcissistic she wasn't egotistical she was very friendly and very open she was just a person that you when you sat and talked to she made you feel like you were the most important person in the world as carolyn starr rose in the world of fashion it would soon cross with the man who would change her life forever there are numerous reports about how they first met there's one account of how both were running in central park and he was suddenly taken back by her beauty no his friend billy way introduced them i i don't know i tried to stay away from it in my book because everybody i talked to had a different story there's another account about a friend of hers and his going suit shopping yeah that sounds possible the jogging in the park thing now but it definitely is true that john swept her off her feet very early on in their relationship carolyn was used to guys who were more closed and she had to draw out john was not that kind of person if john was interested in you he was very open and very forthcoming and she found that to be very refreshing first time i met carolyn she was in the kitchen at the president's house in hyannisport i remember she didn't come from the privilege that he did and what he really loved about her was her edginess you know she was real she wasn't going to pretend she was who she was and she pushed back which was good for him you need a little kick in the butt and she gave it to him before long the two were inseparable and it quickly became clear that america's prince had finally found his soulmate i could tell this was different this was sort of deeper more mature and we were all for it you know how relationships sometimes it's very clear that you're they're balancing things out carolyn did that work john she helped the parts of john that needed to be nurtured i thought in a great way carolyn not only nurtured john personally but she became one of his greatest advocates professionally as well ladies and gentlemen meet george there were a lot of people who when they heard that john kennedy jr was starting a popular magazine about politics said what is he doing and you look back now you think he saw a moment that not everybody else did and carolyn she knew that john was passionate about it she wanted to help she thought about covers she thought about photographers she thought about designers carolyn was really supportive of george and we all kind of thought well this this is interesting something's going on here this is not just a girlfriend she was a pretty big catch and he knew that he had to be everything that he needed to be or she might find somebody else and you know he sort of stepped up his game [Music] on 4th of july weekend in 1995 after having dated seriously for more than a year john whisked carolyn away to his family's house on martha's vineyard and it was here that he asked her to be his wife what said the way that john proposed was that they went out later in the day he says you know i love to fish but fishing is better with a partner and i think that really speaks to the fact that he knew carolyn well and knew she wouldn't want something you know crazy and attention-grabbing but to john's great surprise she hesitated and didn't say yes it was a big decision for her to marry john because she knew what she would be giving up and it was a lot all right look out make way make way let them through let them go the media in new york city in the 90s was focused on john whenever john did something in new york every paper had to have that story when he met carolyn it became more intense because now you start to see well we're putting together the pictures of the future princess of america so the media was on overdrive maybe she foresaw that once the city knew it was official everything that they were going to do from that point was going to be magnified but eventually what she came to was that that doesn't have anything to do with me and that doesn't have anything to do with john we are in and of ourselves an entity that has nothing to do with that despite her hesitation and concerns about life in the public eye carolyn couldn't deny that john was her soul mate and three weeks after their weekend in martha's vineyard she accepted his proposal ultimately she said yes because she loved him and she accepted who john was she was ready to be that person at his side but if their life were to be a public one john was determined to give his new fiancee the private wedding of her dreams and that meant away from the prying eyes of the world they wanted an intimate gathering with loved ones around them they wanted something that really felt real to them this was john's gift to her we're going to get married and there are not going to be any photographers there there's not going to be any paparazzi there there's not going to be any fans there i'm going to find a way that this day is not going to be ruined what better wedding present could he give her than finding a way to marry her in secret holding a private wedding for america's most followed and celebrated couple would take a level of planning and secrecy unlike any wedding in american history as john f kennedy jr and his closest friends touched down at jacksonville airport they have no idea what is in store for them next it's thursday september 19 1996 john f kennedy jr and a group of his closest friends are driving north from jacksonville florida heading towards the georgia state line though john's friends know they're going to a wedding where exactly this wedding will take place is still a complete mystery the whole thing was sort of covert because we were doing it you know in the darkness after roughly 40 minutes they arrive in the town of saint mary's here they will board a modest fishing vessel converted into a ferry boat you kidding me oh look at that the ferry was like what we would call like a lobster boat around here was pumped up it had a diesel engine in it we were like what the there's a head on the ferry i'm sure no there isn't huh i wish i would what next the size and capacity of this small boat might seem unusual for a kennedy wedding but for this kennedy wedding it's exactly right you guys ready yep you better believe it to avoid any possible exposure john and carolyn were forced to keep the guest list incredibly short no small feat for someone with a family like john's i mean imagine if you're getting married right it's hard enough oh my gosh do we have to invite my second cousin from nebraska well imagine if you're john f kennedy jr that list of people that theoretically you should invite would probably be 5 000 people it was an incredibly thoughtful process for jfk junior and carolyn jfk junior ended up picking a cousin from each faction of the family it was kind of one of bobby kennedy's family one of the shrivers one of the radicals and kind of just representatives of each of those arms of the family tree all right here we go [Music] at just past 9 p.m this small group of wedding guests set out on the final leg of their journey we were driving into darkness and everyone was sort of holding their breath because now where we're going is about to become apparent okay roger you come around the corner and the guy says well we're here i'm like we're here where i go i'll let you know how it is up there there you go so all of a sudden it's like this house in the darkness with these little twinkling lights the whole thing was so surreal as the sun rises the next morning the guests awaken and this mysterious wedding location finally fully reveals itself they're on a small atlantic island one mile off the coast of georgia called cumberland island having vacationed over the years at the island's only hotel the gray field inn john knew this remote location would be the perfect hideaway for the wedding with 36 000 acres of untouched forests and beaches it's home to over 150 feral horses less than 50 permanent residents and a rugged unpaved main road cumberland island was incredible i've never experienced anything like that seeing the moss and the trees you felt like you were moving through kind of alleys of trees on that island with the dirt roads and the water was warm it was kind of bath water feeling not quite that hot but it was really pleasant it was a really nice place there it is unbelievable it felt like you were there it was the turn of the last century there's no cars there's no bikes so you're sort of walking and you know all of a sudden it's like oh look at the horses there's nothing to compare it to there were armadillos running around the wild pigs they got a big old butt it's hot no air conditioning there's very little power on the island hey how you guys doing down here i mean can you believe this this is what we came to it was like crazy as the guests continue to discover the wild and rustic cumberland island the staff behind the scenes are dealing with their own discovery as they learn for the first time who this secret wedding is actually for jody sadowsky was hired by the kennedys based on a recommendation from that year's james beard award winner and local restaurant owner elizabeth terry it was very sketchy i think it was it's something about it was a wedding and i knew i'd be cooking for like three days but i had never even heard of cumberland island before i had been there almost as soon as i got off the boat it became clear something was special this was a different deal there were two guys who you know wanted to know what i had in a bag you know i'm thinking what's it to you dude you know then i see you know the little squirrely things coming out of their ears and they were they're big fellas so i knew that that was obviously security and then i started seeing people like ted kennedy walking around caroline kennedy walking around i was like wait a minute here wait wait a minute and then one of the ladies who was washing dishes said yeah this is a this is a jfk junior's wedding i mean i i got goose bumps as soon as i got unpacked that's when i was given a special card and i was told to keep that on my person at all times it was a card and it had an indian head penny and a buffalo head nickel and she had to present it and you had to tell the password to get in there i wonder if anybody has saved any of these now the coins are somewhat rare i'm certain so you're not going to fool anybody by just putting a jefferson nickel in any old lincoln penny on a card i thought that was quite brilliant and if you were on the premises and were caught without this on your person you probably would have got frog marched out of there at that time in 1996 i was writing the the newsletter and i would do all the programs for the church i was attending at the time and um i wrote a nice little editor's corner editorial on my experience for the rest of the congregation to enjoy and uh and that would be this all right editor's corner by jody sadowski cumberland island is nice the island is also very isolated maybe that's why jfk junior and his new bride carolyn bessette kennedy chose this particular area for their wedding you may have heard to the grapevine that i was involved in some aspect of the wedding festivities the rumors are true i was responsible for the production of all consumables the work was very hard the pressure virtually unbearable but this was an experience [Music] i surely will never forget [Music] as day turns to night on cumberland island and all of the guests have finally arrived the first wedding event of the weekend gets underway in this never-before-seen lost footage guests gather on the 19th century veranda of the gray field inn sipping from an assortment of wine and cocktails as they toast the couple to be [Music] this is so fantastic that you have this and to just have family and close friends it is natural it is real [Music] well there i am [Music] i remember just enjoying it so much that dinner they could both relax with the people that they were used to relaxing with because it was such a small group of people i i loved john's family they were funny there was a lot of humor [Applause] and uh i know that uh organizing a a wedding a kennedy wedding is not like invading iraq but most of all we want to thank freeman who said this rehearsal dinner just shows how much their guests were there for them and that's what the weekend was about it was about them that's really special i want to say roll with kennedy we have shown something that is very special and that is that we [Applause] [Music] as the rehearsal dinner for john f kennedy jr and carolyn bessette continues into the night senator ted kennedy leads the toast to the bride and groom in lost footage seen here for the very first time most of all we want to thank freeman for their generosity and hospitality we want to just say that you're not only gaining john as a son-in-law but you're getting 75 headed and he promised that we don't only visible survived it's great i love it i love seeing it i loved that speech teddy was john's like you know his closest father figure really he was the patriarch you know he was the youngest surviving brother whose brothers died at an early age so he was able to uh connect with john on a deeper more personal level but also john's mother had passed away so he was the only adult there from uh john's family going through the magnificent forest and down the mississippi trip reminded so much of it that we know how much my brother and jackie would have appreciated this very special spot that's close to the sea it's close to the dunes close to the sand and you can feel the wind and the spray things which they they value so finally so we know by they love this very very special place uh this came to me this morning i was at home uh trying to get an airplane ticket to come down here by the way no seven day advance 21 day i i do want to say that john in many ways was and is my best friend for many many years and we had the most time together as kids yeah so that's jim shriver who's one of uh my closest friends and uh john's first cousin one of john's closest friends [Music] you know those two were together uh from the very beginning you know they were brothers [Music] and timmy is the he's the purest soul than i know my i have a little son four years old and he has for a year ridden his training wheels bike and today he was out there this morning and the training wheels were off and he was riding his bike and i think in some ways marriage is sort of the taking off of the wheels and i thought of that image uh john and carolyn when i saw him this morning and uh i hope for you that tremendous tremendous happiness of now having the wheels off and riding off together on a wonderful wonderful adventure so cheers to both of you and [Music] uh a great debt of gratitude i realized that we opposed certain conditions upon this event and uh they may have sometimes seemed extreme but what was really important for us was to be able to have a collection of people who we really love to make our lives uh interesting and meaningful and and and give give both of us in our relationship going forward a sense of uh connection with people in our lives and our families really matter so many people have gone through great efforts one way or another timmy who i waited until the second day [Music] that he wouldn't be able to in fact ride with petty i just love seeing these kind of private moments because um they're embarking on life together and i don't care if you're a kennedy i don't care if you're a sweeney living in west virginia we all have a beginning of life with a loved one and this is it it's very similar you sit around people who love you you toast each other and say things about each other so this is like everybody else's life but the thing i loved about john and carolyn was that's what they were like in general but everybody here too many to mention and have just really extended themselves in ways for this it's not just keeping it quiet that has meant the world to us and we are so happy that you all could be here and so grateful to you all for doing it i just want to say that i look forward as we go to having all of you as individual parts of my life together i look forward to getting to know talent's family uh more still sticks in my crawl how perfect [Laughter] it is no clue he screws up what day of the week he was supposed to get married i mean that's this is perfect john that's why everyone's laughing he's laughing at himself you know he was just absent-minded about some things do you ever notice the the wallet chained i mean he had to tie his wallet to his pants so he wouldn't forget it he was so forgetful that at my wedding he chose up you and i said by the way where's the blue blazer he goes oh i forgot my blue blazer oh yeah yeah no problem john all you had to do was bring a blue blazer [Music] changed my life in a way that i never thought was possible and [Music] you know he said that this was him creating a family of friends you know that sums it all up [Applause] john wasn't always wearing his heart on his sleeve and that night he was so after dinner we're all feeling pretty good just wanted to eat drink and have fun isn't that what our good guests are supposed to do as night fades and the sun rises on cumberland island the day of the ceremony is finally here hey noonan i'm a member of the massachusetts state police we're here to do a sobriety test oh god please bail everything that they did was over the top right so after dinner we had a bonfire down the beach which you know were 20 boxes of cigars 100 different bottles of cognac almanac sealed i mean it was like it was like a like a smuggler his ship had crashed and landed on the beach it was like you know these are gorgeous french cognacs so i thought you know tonight i'm going to get myself in a little trouble so i stayed too long down at the beach what time did you get in the morning billy yeah and unbeknownst to me john came into my room and picked up the camera and i was like shut that thing off i'm in bed it's still ball busting right up to the altar wait there's a little blinking thing with a with a crosstalk carolina all ready save me a dance will you how do i turn it off wait count i'm gonna go with you see ya after the rehearsal dinner on friday night uh john got all the guys together and uh gave us these boxes custom-made boxes to keep our usher gifts which were customized boxers as you see these are mine with john's initials and my initials on them what else is in the box well let's see so when we came into the uh african baptist church there was a bible and a fan those were the gifts that you had fam was to keep you cool but these bibles were all there and it's a uh and it says uh a special guest john and carolyn september the 21st 1996. and i've kept this ever since uh reminds me of that and again it's a it's a it's a it's pretty good remember when you know can't go wrong with the bible right it's 4pm finally the time has come all the efforts to keep this wedding a secret and evade the press have been leading up to this guests eagerly await the moment they will watch the happy couple say their i do's unbeknownst to the guests the little church is seven miles away on a dirt road and their transportation oh look at that pickup trucks this is incredible i mean they're being shuttled to the ceremony in the back of a pickup truck that's crazy yeah yep oh look at that into the sunlight of the spirit guests pile in and travel down bumpy dirt roads and search at the secret destination this is incredible nothing like arriving by truck to your wedding right wow it is so remote and these people are out in the jungle this is really unbelievable my god could you imagine the fact that this was big kennedys and jeeps through the far it just the extents that reporters and paparazzi and photographers would would have gone through to get this is unimaginable today [Music] you can see in the passenger seat is senator kennedy and his wife vicki is in the middle but the thing that's so funny is that there's like 17th century chippendale chairs from the dining room in the back seat of this chevy truck i mean can you believe this [Music] as guests travel down the beach suddenly an ominous sound you kidding me all of a sudden there was like some helicopters came around and they were they were like hovering and we were all like oh god if the press were to discover the location of the ceremony the wedding would be bombarded by the media and everything john and carolyn had worked so hard to achieve would be ruined when we first saw those helicopters we knew that you're gonna have a problem [Music] you kidding me my initial reaction would probably be like who told how did this get out ruin everything it's got to piss him off because if you're john you're thinking who might have said something because up to that point it was mission impossible they'd done it they pulled it off and i've seen the paparazzi behave appallingly and obviously whoever got a picture of this weekend would have been a coup for them so the whole idea was to keep everybody off of the island so the only way they knew what to do was to fly a helicopter to try to get some pictures you gotta understand john and carolyn get married it is the biggest story in america so every paper had to have the story that's how important john and carolyn were you're probably petrified you know so much of the operative of this planning of the wedding was around the guise of secrecy so just imagine that all of a sudden you think that your entire plan is foiled if the helicopter was to find the location of the ceremony more would follow and the private wedding that john worked so hard to give carolyn will be ruined everybody wanted to lose them so we took off and had to basically evade them by blasting into the trees making it possible to make it kind of a trick root and losing them and then all of a sudden they weren't there anymore it was a miracle [Laughter] in addition to the guests those involved in putting on the wedding are also on their way to the church among them is david r davis the gospel singer who will sing for john and carolyn we were huddled in the van this size the 15th passenger but it was full of people and i remember uh carolyn bessette's family her mom and the sisters were in the van with me they were talking the whole time and it was excitement you know it was 1996. i was 40 years old and i was ministering music at my church and i came home to my mom's house one night and she came out you know and she was saying some ladies trying to get in touch with you and the messages over there on that answering machines you know they had the little cassette tapes back then so i called her and she said we have a friend that's getting married and they need a gospel singer for the wedding and you your name has come up and i said oh i don't do that [Music] [Applause] i said i sit behind the piano and play beautiful piano accompaniment for powerful singers so i just said no then she told me to humor her and she just said sing something and i don't know what i sang but she said yes yes you're the one you're the one i was like but you know i'm not even finished yet you know and i was like i'm not gonna do it i didn't get hired to sing at weddings that was just it but she was very persistent and she was nice so i guess that's why finally i opened my mouth to say no and yes came out well i'd say the road has smoothed out a lot over 23 years back then the road had deep ruts in it everybody got at least one good bump now that's more like it our whole ride was like that stuff like that david arrived on cumberland island earlier that morning so that he could meet with john and carolyn privately to discuss the music when i first got there i went in the back and john and carol were just sitting there he said so what you what you got for us what you're going to sing for us you know and i had gone out of my norm to prepare something here and now and you and i and he said that's nice but do you know amazing grace whoa i was like yeah no amazing grace oh yeah we want that you know he wanted as it were spirituals amazing graces of him and a spiritual and then senator kennedy came and talked to me and he had heard how i tried to get out of doing this wedding he said i know you think you're not supposed to be here but we wanted somebody here that knows about the things of god and i knew by the divine providence of god is the reason that i was there so for the first time i was consciously glad that i did not win the fight to not do the wedding ah here we go [Music] steps had rotted away so they were building steps and somebody was sweeping it out the doors were open so we went straight to the cornerstone first african baptist church founded in 1893 by reverend t lockett i knew that you know black folk had built it slaves and i felt the spirits of my ancestors back here i dare say that when the wedding took place they were the first people to come back here since you know the last people went away from here [Music] yeah it's dynamite [Music] we got there it was like this really touching really beautiful teeny little wooden chapel so beautiful down there cool looking here it was a sort of sacred feeling very nice quiet feeling and it wasn't artifice it was very very special [Music] i remember being told that it was built for slaves and i'm sure that that was a really important part of their decision it's so imbued with meaning that's that's his family boy i think perhaps for my family one of my father's proudest legacies is his association with civil rights and for his work i learned in my early teenage years what his father stood for what his father meant to the work of dr king and not only his father but his father's brother the attorney general because that challenge is one we are unwilling to postpone and one we intend to win most of the major decisions that john would make in his life would become symbolic of some cause that he was advancing and that's what he was doing as the guests gather outside the church it quickly becomes clear that things are far from ready it was a whole operation they were opening up a church that had been closed for decades i mean the white paint was still on the windows mrs onassis's butler who now worked for john is out planting plants and putting up ivy and i mean we were getting there before the service was supposed to start in 15 minutes and they hadn't even swept out the church yet and of course you know john was late [Music] we've spent an hour and a half at the church it's hot and we're thirsty we're all slapping our legs from these chiggers they gave us fans which were no friggin help at all because it was so sticky and our shirts are soaked through ringing wet i don't want to be doing this anymore all of a sudden a guy shows up from out of nowhere with a case of ice cold heineken we're like what the [Music] what no shrimp you know i mean it was like where did this guy come from you take that bottle up oh here we come here so now i was like come on we gotta go [Music] but as the groom prepares to take his place the wedding party quickly realizes that the bride is still nowhere to be seen people were kind of wondering if everything's okay because it did go on i think with a couple hours maybe [Music] more than two hours passed the planned start time new concerns arise the sun is just setting it's the last rays of daylight and this church is going to get really dark because clearly there's no electricity with its windows completely painted over and daylight fading the possibility of even having a ceremony in this church is now being called into question i mean if she doesn't get here well you got a problem then john f kennedy jr and carolyn bessette are about to say i do on george's rustic and isolated cumberland island but as the sun begins to set the bride is still nowhere in sight kind of wondering if everything's okay because it was a pretty long wait the ceremony is to be held in a small 19th century church which has no electricity and is getting darker by the second how many weddings do you go to that happen in the dark that you really can't see what's going on at night finally after nearly two hours the bride appears i was so relieved like oh great i assumed that it was just the nerves that human beings have right before they're gonna get married but then i heard that there was a wedding dress emergency so the bride is you know getting ready for the most important day of her life she has this beautiful custom-made slip dress wedding gown it is being problematic it didn't have a zipper in the back because it was custom made to her body was meant to go over the head like a slip when something incredibly beautiful is presented and it looks like it was simple it's just not simple to design this dress carolyn turned to an old friend from her years at calvin klein cuban-born narciso rodriguez carolyn admired his work and she told him someday you're going to dress me i know you're going to be a big star and she wasn't right in fact once the dress was revealed to the world narciso rodriguez became a superstar [Music] his dress was iconic and it was brilliant and it was beautiful but at the time it was completely different from any other wedding dress during the 90s that we had seen during that decade we saw a lot of ball gowns and princessy type of pieces and yet here's carolyn bissett she's essentially becoming america's princess and she doesn't choose anything out of a a fairy tale movie instead she chose something that was elegant and structured you know i had a cowl neck which is a very soft kind of grecian feature cut on the bias skims the body moves with it very sexy it was kind of a shocking dress for the day i mean most people weren't comfortable wearing a slip dress to a function let alone a wedding the veil and the gloves were made out of tulle which is of course a very transparent lightweight material which made it very magical can we talk about the back of the dress too that it has kind of this open back which is the tasteful cleavage when you do back cleavage the simple clean design led to carolyn having trouble getting it on supposedly carolyn wasn't able to completely get the dress on over her head just imagine you being the bride trying to put on this piece that you had worked so diligently on and suddenly it's not fitting over your head thankfully a quick thinking friend came up with a solution by draping a silk scarf over her head and across her shoulders they were able to slide the dress down her body they had to redo the hair and makeup long story short she was two hours late for the ceremony by this time the sun is going down happy accident though because that is what sparked the idea for the candlelit ceremony we found some religious candles in there on the altar they lit some candles and it worked [Music] [Applause] [Music] and that gave a very sacred quiet feel to it and it was so beautiful [Music] that's what made it really timeless it was really cool this is so fantastic that you have this i'm blown away now with the church glowing and candlelight and the guests in their seats the ceremony can finally begin [Music] [Applause] as the sun sets on george's cumberland island carolyn bessette prepares to say i do to america's prince john f kennedy jr [Music] the seer was like wow i remember just being awed now for the first time the world will witness this historical moment as the last footage of camelot's secret wedding is finally revealed we were all together in the darkness david r davis was standing in the corner right over here right about here right about here i just started singing okay this is it it's now or never um how sweet the sound was [Music] my heart the little lanterns were on the floor and they were illuminating but not faces it got magical [Music] [Music] [Music] when we find ourselves here in a celebration of love and of sanctity and a commitment and so we begin as always the name of the father and the son and of the holy spirit amen god you have made the bond of marriage church hear our prayers for john and carolyn i think seeing her getting married the joy and the excitement kind of overshadowed everything i didn't think about doing her hair i didn't think about what we had done i just thought she looked happy and she looked beautiful back in that time honestly i can't think of anybody else whose marriage was really more important than this this was america's royal couple and so in the presence of god's church i ask you to state your intention john and carolyn have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage will you love and honor each other as man and wife for the rest of your lives since it is your intention to enter into marriage i now ask you to join your right hands and declare your consent before god and his church [Music] when i was filming it i think the candlelight when she's saying her wedding vows really captures the majesty of her and how beautiful she was [Music] [Music] before [Music] sickness [Music] [Music] until john and carolyn you have declared your consent before the church it's just you know she was so young she was like a little girl what god has joined no one must divide [Music] is [Music] i could see you know i knew he was a little nervous i knew he was a little scared [Music] that moment right there the moment that you put her hand on his shoulder to reassure him that everything was okay [Music] that is quite a loving subtlety but that was her you know she'd be like oh john [Music] is [Music] wow [Music] at the moment that he's lifted the veil and husband kisses wife he turns around and looks directly at me as if to say did you get that [Music] i'm telling you the love that was surrounding this affair from my viewpoint and you just felt that family that familial thing that day and it was about the love they were married it was done it was a triumph at the end of it everybody's high-fiving he's like we did it it got done it may not have been exactly the way we had to adjust we had to adapt we had to do some other things but it's done and we're married party can begin [Music] all odds john f kennedy jr has married his soul mate carolyn bessette kennedy [Music] in a private ceremony away from the eyes of the world now with the ceremony finished it's time for festivities to begin and then when it was over it was like come on we gotta go we're late we're behind schedule and we jump in the back of these pickup trucks now the sun is set we were going down the beach and all of a sudden this storm comes in from nowhere and the lightning was up above the clouds and then there was just a little bit of rain [Music] it was kind of like it was being blessed it was being acknowledged and it was being blessed they were married it was done there were no more helicopters nobody was there i was so happy for john having he just pulled it off and everybody was there and everything was good yeah it was great it was a great time as quickly as the storm had come the clouds cleared [Music] as the guests continue on towards the reception that will be held on the grounds of the gray field inn chef jody sadowsky has been racing against the clock in anticipation of their arrival if you've ever worked in a halfway decent kitchen there's always stress it's always high tension high pressure i didn't get a menu until saturday morning and i knew that we were assembling massive amounts of of food but the whole ball game changed when i got in the kitchen there was nobody in there nothing was on the guy who was supposed to get that kitchen prepped had been detained somewhere for some other reason i'm not quite sure maybe he was caught without his nickel and penny nevertheless we were behind schedule so at that point i had a light of fire in that kitchen so i got everything cranked up everything pulled out food tempered nissan plus set before long jody and his team hit their stride and though they had to move quickly to get everything ready by the time the guests returned in the end the kennedy reception menu was as simple and elegant as the rest of the affair we had the free range capons simply roasted we poached artichokes in a court bouillon with a very simple vinaigrette over top we had a patty pan squash and we poached those and then sauteed them which was really good and finally uh irish potatoes why am i not surprised the kennedys served irish potatoes it was a challenge but we got it done and you know at the end of the whole thing it turned out turned out very nice as the guests returned from the church an intimate outdoor reception gets underway on the grounds of the gray field inn we got back to the reception and it was a tent that had been set up very cool there's only four or five tables kind of like a picnic with delicious food that was really cool [Music] my brother and jackie they understood something that uh my mother and father understood so well and that is that the real test of a human life is how your children turn out and what a sense of joy both of them would have john and carol caroline when celebrities are out and about the one thing they try to guard all the time is their emotions however it's footage like this that shows the real people and when you see it it is so humanizing and so relative to any family just after john was born the ambassador from ireland came to the white house ambassador mckiernan and it's going to be short john at the time he read a poem that had been written about his son when his son was born he mentioned these lines to my brother jack we wish to the new child a heart that can be beguiled by a flower a heart that can recognize without aid of the eyes the gifts that life holds for the wise and when the storms breaks for him may the tree shake for him there blossoms down in the night that he is troubled may a friend wait for him so that his time be doubled and at the end of all the loving and love may the man above give him a crown and after that my brother was quiet for a few moments and said i wish that had been written about me well the fact is it was really written about john and carolyn and i ask you to [Music] [Music] that's the beauty of senator kennedy the patriarch the adults kennedy in the room reminding everybody that there's something greater going on here and it's love john and caroline then comes the baby in the baby is [Music] is [Music] [Applause] the more famous you are the more you cherish the friends that are there for you and support you it was just a group of friends that were kind of isolated in a place celebrating the love that two people had for each other they wanted something that really felt real to them [Music] [Applause] [Music] it was really beautiful because they just wanted to dance together it wasn't an exhibition it was something that really had you know meaning this is why people go to weddings because their love story is just beginning only good things from here on in that's what everybody in the room wants that's what you expect [Music] john used to ask me all the time but how did you know that phil was the one you know how did how did you know that and i just remember saying to him well how do you know this is the one he was like yeah i don't know but i know and i was like yeah that's it come on we'll take the baby over come on this is wonderful when we leave the next morning the whole feeling of all of us it was great it's like we did it thank you thank you here we go but as the last of the guests depart and the magical weekend comes to a close the country is about to discover that their prince charming is a bachelor no more it was only when we were getting into the jacksonville airport news was just coming out that they had gotten married john f kennedy jr confirmed today that he indeed married carolyn bessette over the weekend the couple managed to outfox and evade the entire tabloid press who never got into the wedding until it was over i heard for example that it was in a small chapel we still have not heard a word yet they're still not talking how do they keep this a secret i bet you they are just high-fiving on the plane or wherever they are in their honeymoon i remember thinking how the hell did they do this because if you could catch us with our pants down i'm impressed with just one photo released to the world the media became desperate for more and when john and carolyn returned from their honeymoon they were greeted by immediate intensity unlike anything they could have imagined no one knows the sense of being hunted until you've had to deal with the paparazzi karen where you going huh you guys go for a walk you're picking something up here wait during the courtship stage it was all intrusive but people did keep a certain perimeter around john and carolyn but once they got married i can't describe how much more it amped up it was unbelievable john carolyn come on john come on give it a shot carolyn in particular was shell shocked by the media onslaught john was sympathetic to carolyn's concerns about paparazzi because he had been living that life since the age of three and he knew how to control it caroline was very different and in many ways john began trying to find a way to protect carolyn [Music] bring my wife down and we're gonna do a visit with some folks uh i just asked that you know getting married is a big adjustment and for her who was a private citizen up until about two weeks ago it's even more so so i just asked any you know privacy guys can you back over on me or she makes sense it was like their love story was just beginning but the press is love story it wasn't a love story anymore it was a very invasive gotta have this backstabbing even though they love john they went to every length to get anything on them how was the honeymoon john i can see that we're not getting it we're not one more time how was the honeymoon john good luck carolyn as much attention as she and john got before they got married it went to a totally different level after they got married and carolyn did not always handle that well the press freaked her out i think that when the publishing world was looking for her to become her mother-in-law who she never met was unfair to her jackie would have been able to help her so much in navigating the terrain around kennedy culture jackie had a lot of animosity toward photographers and paparazzi when she first started out as a kennedy wife but she figured out how to exist in new york with the paparazzi and just go about her life looking gorgeous and not caring and so i think that it's a shame because jackie would have been very very helpful the photographs that ran of carolyn typically looked unhappy maybe a little pissed off guarded and to be fair i think that there was some very careful photo editing that was contributed to that image of her because if you really want to sell newspapers you create the good guy and you create this person who's making him unhappy like there's an economic incentive to portray carolyn as filled with drama and tension and tabloids are not high-minded places right they're all about making money at the end of the day [Music] but for those who knew her best the real carolyn was far different than the one the media portrayed to the world in the press the image that i saw of her didn't correspond to what she was like in real life she was extremely warm and children loved her and that's something that you know i always think of that as a real like litmus test and my children both i mean to say that they loved her is not even enough she had that real natural warmth she loved animals you know she was alive to nature and it didn't really come off out there in the world exactly it wasn't easy but one thing about carolyn bessette is that she was a very very strong person and eventually she realized she really sort of had to get used to the idea of dealing with the press and the media and i i think it's to her great credit that she did i do remember her dealing with it and ultimately she was actually smiling and there was a playfulness between the two of them in public which suggested to me that she was getting better at it but you know we i mean life is just so bizarre the kind of things that can happen we have a um a developing story it's hard to tell what to make of it at this point but we're going to learn a little bit more about it right now jody nbc news has learned that a small plane being piloted by john f kennedy jr has been reported missing on july 16th 1999 john f kennedy jr and carolyn bessette along with her sister lauren bessette took off in a small plane out of fairfield new jersey to attend the wedding of his cousin rory kennedy in martha's vineyard wow look at that the flight may have began in the same celebratory spirit as the plane that departed three years earlier for jfk junior's own wedding that had a hey spanky it ended in tragedy john f kennedy jr was flying from new jersey with his wife carolyn and her sister lauren friday evening his single-engine plane never made it to martha's vineyard the saturday morning i got a phone call from a television anchor and she said john's plan is missing as the search continues i want to express our family support and offer our prayers and those of all americans my initial reaction was just oh my god this can't be at 11 30 p.m the break the camera finds the fuselage and the body of john f kennedy jr later the bodies of the bessette sisters found as well [Music] nobody ever expected that three years later would be in another church for another reason we had to go through the the agony of you know we all had to go through our our loss in our own ways really bad [Music] it seemed like a nightmare i was just um heartbroken just before the accident i had gone to john's home for that fourth of july weekend and i had such strong imprints of my conversations with john especially one night when i was out on the dunes i remember deciding to work on a painting of the dunes for john i wanted to give it to him and when he died quite soon after that that painting has a special you know emotional content for me because you know i had to get through it and give it some kind of [Music] you know give it give it its due actually make a real effort while i was that um heartbroken and actually call it for john on the back so i always felt like okay i got through that i did that for you can't give it to you but did it thousands of mourners from all over place flowers hand-written letters and candles outside of john and carolyn's apartment i remember the cover of the new yorker was the statue of liberty with a black veil over her i mean you you couldn't nail it more perfectly than that's the way we felt we were headed to some place beautiful it felt like and i think that's the biggest hurt we lost out on two people who were going to have an effect on the world in a much more positive way than many people we look at now family members watched from the stern of the ship while three urns were opened on the bow the ocean wind scattered the ashes of john jr his wife carolyn and her sister lauren we saw john at his worst possible point in his life to becoming the man that we all dreamed his father was going to be had he lived and carolyn was her own woman we were robbed of a magnificent future of a beautiful story it's just the worst feeling with the waters off cape cod becoming his final resting place john kennedy jr echoed the words of his father we are tied to the ocean and when we go back to the sea to sail or to watch it we go back from whence we came [Music] john knew you only get one run he'd seen enough short lives in his short life so i think he wanted to celebrate everything that he wanted to do while he could it changed my life in a way that i never thought was possible and uh just made me alive what a shame it was with all this love that they never had the time together to sort of feather their own nest i now ask you to join your right hands and declare your consent before god and his church what i miss about carolyn is her kindness her openness and her friendship she was just a person that you when you sat and talked to she made you feel like you were the most important person in the world [Music] even though it's been 20 years they're there but i can't see them and that's that's how i feel i mean yeah john was a very famous person out in the world out there but inside i just knew him for who he really was and i loved him for who he really was and my children and my husband and my mother we all just loved him for who he was you know nothing we're going to do is going to bring them back [Applause] but i would like for the memory to be positive you know the whole idea of lighting candles instead of cursing darkness there's a more profound message in this video that shows their best day together here how fun it was how great it was there's something greater going on here and it's love [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: Documentary Central

Views: 2,637,135

Keywords: Doco, Documentaries, Documentary, Episode, Movie, Movies, Online, Series, TV, john f. kennedy, carolyn bessette-kennedy, married, cumberland island, carolyn bessette, john f. kennedy jr., today show, cat-entertainment, celebrity, ie celebrity, inside edition, jfk, jfk jr, kennedy, kennedy wedding, marriage, marriage problems, plane crash, john f kennedy, john f kennedy jr, john f kennedy jr plane crash, john f kennedy jr interview, President, Shooting, assassination, Pamela Anderson

Id: G_ReTzXXFWA

Length: 87min 45sec (5265 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 14 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/Familiar_Doughnut798]

I understand the whole "they died young and beautiful and tragically" angle to why people are still so intrigued by them. And yes, I had pinterest boards filled with carrie bradshaw and caroline besset's outfits.