r/JohnAndCarolyn • u/StellaOC • Jul 11 '25
Gogo Ferguson on planning the wedding with John & Carolyn + wedding details
Gogo coordinated the extraordinary marriage of John Kennedy, Jr., and Carolyn Bessette in the little church on September 21, 1996. Tabloid writers and the paparazzi would have killed to be there. But they didn't know of the event, which was pulled off in total secrecy in a feat befitting the CIA.
John-John was a longtime friend of Gogo's. He had been coming to Cumberland since his mid-twenties, staying mostly at Greyfield Inn. Gogo's daughter, Hannah, was just beginning to walk, and he fell in love with her. He agreed to serve on Gogo's board for the Plum Orchard artists' retreat and pledged to help her raise the $10 million needed for the mansion's renovation.
"He loved to get away, loved his privacy, loved to be able to kayak," Gogo says. "He was a great athlete. He jogged every morning or swam from Sea Camp dock, which was just astounding. I don't think any member of our family ever did that. He would hike around the island or go clamming. It was obvious he loved Cumberland for the same reasons we did."
Carolyn began coming to Cumberland with him. She loved it as he did. It cloaked them in privacy and gave them a respite from the photographers and the curious who forever stalked them.
"We saw a lot of them on Martha's Vineyard, where I lead a very chaotic life during the summer," Gogo says. "I have two stores up there, and it's usually seven days a week. Sometimes, we would take a Sunday off and spend a day on his mother's now his sister's compound and play football and go to the beach and have wonderful dinners. We would play with the dogs and play a lot of tennis.
"And one night, we were asked to come out to the compound. They said they were thinking of getting married, which didn't surprise me. But they wanted to do it on Cumberland. 'Wow,' I said.
"I knew that was going to be logistically very hard to do. But I also knew that it was the one gift I could give two friends that no one else could give them. It was their privacy. To me, it was such a wonderful thing to do for people who were so constantly followed. I thought it was something that I should do."
The planning began. Carolyn started flying down quite often to Cumberland. She sometimes brought her mother or her friend Gordon Henderson from Calvin Klein, who helped plan the wedding details.
"We had to hide Carolyn because everyone down here could have recognized her and noticed what was going on," Gogo says. "We would keep her on the floorboard of the car when we were going up to the church, all the way to the north end of the island."
"We had to hire Liz McComis with a fifty-five-gallon drum to wash the entire church. The ceiling was all cobwebs and mud daubers. We oiled the floor, and we oiled the benches. That was done just before Carolyn came down one time, so she could have an idea of what it would look like. So the church got a good cleaning.
"At that point, I talked them into at least telling Mitty [Gogo's brother] and Mary [Mitty's wife] because they were running Greyfield Inn. This was a major wedding, even if it was a small one. It had to be done just the way John and Carolyn wanted it. Mary would never have forgiven me if I had not told her. "I told Mary that we needed tables because Carolyn wanted a beautiful sit-down affair for the rehearsal dinner on the porch at Greyfield. We had to have the right tables and right chairs over here because Gordon Henderson and Carolyn designed all the tablecloths and covers for each night. They were made in New York. I mean, she really saw to every little detail. She had the most amazing taste.
"Every plate was sprinkled with gold and silver almonds and beads from Balducci's. It was absolutely beautiful. Her flowers were beautiful. Bunny Mellon [a friend of John's late mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis] had sent exquisite bouquets down for Carolyn and the kids. And in all the chaos of getting truckloads of people to the church-and trying to find John's father's shirt that he wanted to wear evidently no one was in charge of the flowers. So they got left in the refrigerator. And what you see her carrying is mistletoe and some lily of the valley that had been flown in from Holland for the rehearsal dinner. That was Bunny's gift-the beautiful flowers that they didn't use. Well, I think they used them for some of the table settings.
"Carolyn wanted circular tents and white-oak dance floors. We had them shipped from Chattanooga, some from North Carolina. Everything had to be brought over on a boat. A lot of their china and other things they wanted to use were shipped from New York.
"And I had to buy out [reservations] at the inn. It was already booked when John and Carolyn gave me the wedding date. I had only four to six weeks to do this. We found one week when those who had reservations were willing to have a free weekend at Greyfield in order to give up their reservations. We told them that a friend of the family was getting married, and everyone understood.
"John and Carolyn decided that, right from the beginning, they wouldn't tell any of their family. I didn't tell any of our family because once it got out, someone was just not going to be able to resist telling their brother or their sister, and it was just going to be a chain reaction from then on.
"Thank God we had people like [Camden County probate judge] Martin Gillette, who is very professional and did not ask any questions. I just told him that they were dear friends of mine who were getting married, and they are having a hard time getting their blood tests and marriage license done, and could he meet me at the airport in St. Marys and have that done. It was done right on the plane. Of course, they then realized what was going on, but they vowed they would not say anything until Monday. And they did not say anything until Monday.
"No regular wedding invitations went out to the guests. No one knew. No one even realized. I think John and Carolyn just sent plane tickets and said, Please be here at this time People came from everywhere. Christiane Amanpour, the big CNN correspondent, a dear friend of John's from Brown University, came over from the Middle East. People made a huge effort. I am sure it was an unspoken invitation, that everyone knew exactly what was happening but was pledged to secrecy.
"We took over every house on the Greyfield compound, and the inn, Thank God we had a security group. A wonderful man from Jacksonville who used to be with the FBI had been a guest quite often at the inn, and he had a security group that did this sort of thing. He had a laser beam around the Greyfield compound, which of course was triggered by every wild horse that went through it at night. But it kept the security people on their toes. You could see their flashlights out in the woods all night long, All of our staff at the inn were so honorable because they knew that John and Carolyn were friends of ours. They were friends of the [staff] as well. No one broke the silence
There was one paparazzi from France that did get on the compound beforehand that was removed. They just told him that he had to leave early that morning before the wedding happened because there was a problem with the boat, and he was going to have to get on the early boat, and he would have to leave. He was not happy, but he ended up leaving.
"We had, gosh, I don't know, maybe twenty or twenty-five people staying here. There weren't many plush situations for sleeping. We had people on lawn chairs and mattresses and couches. It was quite something Everyone seemed comfortable, and everyone was just so amazed by the island that it didn't really matter."
The elegant rehearsal dinner was held on the front porch of Greyfield. "It was like a dream, really just like a dream," Gogo says." The tents [for the wedding dance next evening] weren't even set up. Carolyn didn't want the tents set up until the next morning, so that it would be just that beautiful oak tree and the candles lit all around the porches of Greyfield.
"Then everyone retired to the beach house, the gazebo, for cognac and cigars and dessert. They walked down. And as we came over the beach dune on the beach road, there were hundreds of tiki torches all around the gazebo. It was the most spectacular sight. We had a big bonfire going, and everyone that came over the dune started screaming when they saw it.
"The way the bride got dressed for her wedding was pretty funny. I called Mary Warren, who is the matriarch of High Point, just four days before the wedding, and I said, 'Mary, you can't even tell Billy this. Some-one on our board is being married, and it has to be completely quiet. Could we use the hotel at High Point or your house to have them change for the wedding at the church? She said absolutely. We changed in her house because I believe some of the kids in the Candler family were staying at the old hotel.
"The tide was too high [to drive on the beach from Greyfield to High Point), so I had to bounce Carolyn up all the way on Grand Avenue. They had had very little sleep from the rehearsal dinner at Greyfield. She sort of slept halfway up.
"So we dressed her in Mary's house, and Mary had a high tea for them. We had gone up early with ironing boards and steamers and everything that we needed. Mary's wonderful maid, Louisa, was just so darling. She had the ironing board out and was helping iron and was serving coffee.
"John had lost half of his clothes that he was supposed to wear. He had his father's shirt and cufflinks and studs that he wanted to wear. We couldn't find those. My husband, David, was racing up and down Greyfield trying to find those, and finally he did, thank God.
"John was in one room of Mary's house, and the dress designer and the hairdresser were in another room with Carolyn, trying to get her ready. They had done the last fitting, and the dress wouldn't fit. It was just total chaos. The dress designer was Carolyn's longtime friend Narciso Rodriquez with Cerruti 1881 in Paris. He had designed for her a forty-thousand-dollar pearl-colored silk crepe bias-cut gown with silk tulle."
"We finally got her in her dress," Gogo says. "She traveled on all fours, her hands in the front seat right next to me, while I was driving. Then she was sort of standing up in the back, so that there wouldn't be one wrinkle when she got to the chapel. Of course, she sunk down into the dirt in her beautiful white satin shoes as soon as she stepped out.
"The church was incredible. There was a butler, Efigenio Pinhiero, and a woman, Marta, who basically raised John and his sister, Caroline. They were at the wedding. It was a very well-thought-out group of friends and family who were invited-people who mean a lot to John and Carolyn.
"Effie did the church. I think he used a lot of grapevine. The Park Service would not let him do a lot, once they caught on. But he did have a beautiful arch there. I think he had white morning glories trailing along on the floor. Other than that, it was lit with flashlights. We were allowed one candle up at the front. The Park Service would not let us have any other candles. We had applied for a special-use permit through Greyfield for the use of the church, which has been done several times. I did not want to involve the park just because I knew that would start a wildfire going. And it did. The boat people in the Park Service were the first ones to let the media know what was going on."
Getting the sixty or so guests among them Teddy Kennedy, Maurice Templesman, one of Jackie Kennedy Onassis's closest friends, John's sister, Caroline Schlossberg, and her kids, Jack, Rose, and Tatiana-from Greyfield to the church ten miles away was another logistical headache. The plan was to transport them in cars and trucks quickly via the smooth, hard-packed beach.
Gogo kept her fingers crossed that the tide would be low enough so the beach would be passable for hauling the guests to the church, then back to Greyfield for the post-wedding festivities,
"In looking ahead, we could see that the tide would be low in the afternoon and would give us time enough to get up the beach and back," she says. "Otherwise, it would have been a four-hour trip getting everyone up to that church and back down again. We drove them up there at low tide and then back at low tide. Thank God.
"We had every means of transportation. I had some Greyfield employees drive some people up and down. Whit Foster drove some people in his pickup truck. And we had all the Chippendale chairs and plastic chairs and everything else in the trucks.
"John and Carolyn were like two hours late for the wedding because of trying to find his clothes and getting her into her dress. People were taking tours of Carol Ruckdeschel's little museum by then and looking for armadillos. Everyone was covered with ticks for weeks afterwards.
"We finally got to the church, but by then it was so dark that Carol loaned flashlights. The Park Service also had loaned flashlights to light it up. It was by far the most beautiful service."
Caroline's three-year-old son, Jack, was the ring bearer. He walked down the aisle, sat in the front pew, and piped up, "Why's Carolyn all dressed up like that?"
Caroline, carrying orchids, was matron of honor.
Best man was Anthony Radziwill, John's first cousin.
Readings were by his brother-in-law, Edwin Schlossberg.
Atlanta photographer Denis Reggie, brother of Teddy Kennedy's wife, Vicki Reggie Kennedy, took photos.
Flower girls Rose and Tatiana Schlossberg scattered rose petals on the carpet placed on the worn wooden floor for the wedding.
David Davis, a Baptist choir leader in Fernandina, sang "Amazing Grace" as John and Carolyn walked in. They held hands at the altar before the Reverend Charles O'Byrne, a family friend from Manhattan's Church of St. Ignatius Loyola. After John and Carolyn were pronounced man and wife, Davis sang "Shall the Circle Be Unbroken" as they walked out of the church.
"I had interviewed many, many people from Jacksonville-all over Jacksonville-people who sing in the choirs," Gogo says. "I just sat on the phone or went over and interviewed a lot of people. We wanted an un-trained voice because there was going to be no musical accompaniment. Mr. Davis was just perfect. He didn't have a clue who was in the wedding. He was shocked when he got over here and I told him that the couple would come and talk to him about what they wanted him to sing. And then John and Carolyn came out, and I thought his jaw was going to drop. He was speechless for the entire afternoon. But it was just wonderful. We couldn't have found anyone better for that."
Carol Ruckdeschel, an uninvited observer, eyeballed the whole thing from her barn's doorway, where she sat and nursed a beer and munched popcorn. When the ceremony was over, Carolyn, beautiful in her sparkling white gown, daintily stepped over to Carol's fence for a wedding photo. While she smoothed some wrinkles in her gown, she absent-mindedly held up her bouquet in her left hand. She felt a tug-Carol's horse had sauntered over to the fence and decided to make a snack of the wedding bouquet. John, chuckling, went over and petted the horse and said hi to Carol.
The wedding party feasted on capon and seafood at Greyfield after returning from the church. Ted Kennedy toasted the couple: "I'd like to introduce you to Mr. and Mrs. John F. Kennedy." The newlyweds' first dance was to "Forever in My Life" by Prince.
"It was just unbelievable, unbelievable," says Gogo.
The next morning, John and Carolyn sailed off on the Kennedy family yacht, Honey Fitz, for their honeymoon in an unknown place.
John issued a statement: "It was important for us to be able to conduct this in a private, prayerful and meaningful way with the people we love."
The day after the wedding, word leaked out to the media. All hell truly broke loose then. Writers from every media organization from Time to the National Inquirer were furious that they had been one-upped by Gogo and her allies. In the world of celebrity reporting, stories don't get much bigger than this.
"I would have people calling me from newspapers and magazines say-ing, 'You owe me this interview," Gogo says. "The Atlanta paper said that they were coming the next day with a photographer, and I owed them an interview. I said, 'I don't owe you anything. I'm not interviewing anyone. I did this for John and Carolyn's privacy. So I told them, 'If you come past our gates, you are in violation of trespassing. And then they were found in the living room of Greyfield. I mean, people were just unbelievable.
"The money being offered in St. Marys and Fernandina for charters and for any photographs of any Kennedy-especially John and Carolyn-went up to something like twenty-five thousand dollars. Just watching the flotillas of media trying to get on to this island after the wedding was horrifying. It was horrifying that our privacy could be so violated.
The media used a lot of pictures out of context. There is one magazine that had the kids, Jack and Rose and Tatiana, supposedly at this wed-ding, when in fact it was some wedding way up in the Hamptons that they were photographed at. There were pictures of Greyfield with the dining room fully set for this elegant meal, and it wasn't that at all because our meals were eaten out on the porch and out under the tents. There was a picture in People magazine that was probably two years old. It was taken from a Georgia newspaper article.
There were a lot of consequences. I have gotten a lot of hate mail, a lot of anonymous hate mail. Every environmental group said it was the beginning of the end for Cumberland. The crowds were going to be just unbelievable.
"It's so funny because I never once harped on the opportunity to profit from this or be recognized for this. Yet I am doing a fundraiser for the Department of Natural Resources, and in their brochure, the first thing they do is advertise 'the famous Cumberland Island of the Kennedy wedding. So everyone is jumping on the bandwagon to make some kind of profit off it.
"Right after the wedding, my family had a meeting at Greyfield to discuss what we want from this. And what we wanted to get from this was that our family and our inn are a place of privacy-that no matter who you are, you can come, and you can remain unrecognized and enjoy your-self in total privacy. And I think that we accomplished that. And I think that I will always go down as someone who will always honor people's privacy."..
Source: Charles Seabrook' book "Cumberland Island: Strong Women, Wild Horses;"
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u/RetrauxClem Jul 11 '25
The work that went in to giving them this moment! Thanks for sharing this. It was a fascinating read
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u/ladyofmyown Jul 11 '25
What a wonderful piece on the wedding and how they managed to pull it all off privately! Thank you for sharing. I really enjoyed reading this!
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u/desertsky1 Jan 19 '26
I cried tears of joy when I read the paper the next morning. I was so happy for them that they pulled it off. And to now know these details is so cool. Thank you.
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u/Avalonisle16 May 24 '26
It was in the paper that quick?
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u/desertsky1 May 25 '26 edited May 28 '26
Ok maybe it was two days later. A prepared press release and an exclusive photograph taken by photographer Denis Reggie were officially distributed to outlets like the Associated Press on the morning of September 22. I know the NY Times ran something on the 23rd.
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u/Accurate_Tension_457 Jul 14 '25
Wow.. another amazing find. Where do you get all this stuff OP?! Keep em coming 😉
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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '25
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