People

By Kathleen Brady

To many Americans, it was the near equivalent of the royal wedding that Britain is preparing for, albeit with a slight reversal of roles. At Westminster Abbey this Wednesday, with suitable pomp and ceremony, Prince Andrew of the House of Windsor weds his commoner (but uncommon) love, Sarah Ferguson. But near Hyannis Port, Mass., last Saturday, the bride was the Princess of Camelot when Caroline Bouvier Kennedy, 28, daughter of President John F. Kennedy and former First Lady Jacqueline Onassis, was married to the very un-Kennedyesque Edwin Arthur Schlossberg, 13 years her senior.

In recent years, as the "Kennedy cousin" generation has come to maturity, Hyannis Port and the rambling family compound have been the sites of exuberant weddings. Unlike the Maria Shriver-Arnold Schwarzenegger nuptials last April, this wedding was about as private as a Kennedy ceremony can probably be. For all the paparazzi attention that has been focused on her, Caroline, a law student at Columbia University, is actually reserved; unlike the Kennedy men, who tend to define themselves by action, Schlossberg, whom she met at a dinner party five years ago, is an intellectual and artist whose somewhat rarefied career defies precise terminology. Frequently described as a "Renaissance man," he is a designer of museum displays and interiors and the author of nine books, including a computer handbook and a limited edition of poetry written on Plexiglas, aluminum and black cloth.

Most striking of all, for this Catholic family whose scion broke the religion bar in presidential politics, Schlossberg is Jewish. The son of a Manhattan textile manufacturer, he is liked by the bride's family not for his ability to garner votes or toss a football but because he is comfortable sitting in the background and learning what others have to say.

The wedding and the preparations leading up to it, however, were as traditional as the bridegroom was atypical. So starved was the press for news that reporters zeroed in on arriving Cousin and Bridesmaid Sydney Lawford McKelvy in the Barnstable airport ladies' room and besieged her with questions as she changed her son's diaper. The mother of the bride was characteristically silent, but she did wave cheerily to onlookers when she arrived from her estate on Martha's Vineyard.

The Saturday afternoon service at the simple clapboard Our Lady of Victory Church was completely Catholic and performed by two priests, although there was no nuptial Mass. Caroline, dressed in a white silk organza gown with cloverleaf appliques designed by Carolina Herrera, arrived in a white limousine with her uncle, Senator Ted Kennedy, who helped her with her train and patted her back encouragingly before they entered the church. When the more than 2,000 onlookers grew noisy, Caroline hushed them with a finger to her lips. Thirty minutes later, she and her new husband emerged from the church, and Best Man John F. Kennedy Jr. blew his sister a kiss. Jackie, wearing a fitted, pale lime green sheath, bit her lip and struggled to hold back tears as she walked out of the church on the arm of Uncle Ted. He has walked other nieces down other aisles, and his avuncular presence is depended upon and appreciated. Still, one can safely guess that the old Kennedy New Frontiersmen sitting in the church were musing not just of weddings and brides and grooms but of the father of the bride, John F. Kennedy, who had bound them together decades ago and whose daughter had reconvened them in another age.

With reporting by Joelle Attinger/Centerville and Jonathan Wells/Boston