BY GEORGE, HE GOT MARRIED!

By JAMES COLLINS

Yes, the secrecy was a triumph, and the planning and logistics really were impressive. But this wasn't the Normandy invasion, it was a wedding, and something more important has been overlooked: how incredibly romantic it must have been. The setting was one of the wild, unspoiled sea islands off Georgia--to visitors, they seem like remnants of the New World as it was before its discovery. This one, Cumberland Island, is inhabited by armadillos, wild boar and wild horses. Spanish moss hangs from its ancient oaks. There is a tiny wooden chapel, where the ceremony was held by candlelight. Crickets sang in the grass. Could there be a more beautiful and tender place to hold a wedding?

Give John F. Kennedy Jr., 35, and Carolyn Bessette, 30, credit. They succeeded in keeping their marriage on Sept. 21 a secret from the press and saved themselves from an attack of helicopters that would have rivaled something out of Apocalypse Now. Of course, they could not cover their tracks forever, and the tabloids have already discovered them on their honeymoon in Turkey. But they accomplished more than just the news blackout. Give them credit for holding a wedding that had dignity, style, mystery and joy, in the manner of the groom's mother. This occasion may have been the most important of Kennedy's adult life so far, publicly as well as privately, and he carried it off with an imagination and delicacy that not everyone assumed he possessed.

Getting there was a long and complicated process. The Boston Globe reported that the chapel on Cumberland had been reserved for three months. Certainly, the planning began at least two months ago, when Bessette asked Narciso Rodriguez of Cerruti to start designing her dress. For weeks in August and September, Kennedy and Bessette seemed to be purposefully throwing the press off the scent. He was seen around New York City on his own. She was in Paris, and the papers gave an account of her night out with a Frenchman at a fashionable restaurant. The man turned out to be Rodriguez. "I am her supposed French lover," he later joked.

All along, the real action was taking place on a remote Georgia island. Cumberland is 18 miles long and accessible only by boat, unless you are brave enough to land a small plane on the grassy little airstrip, where horses tend to graze. The National Park Service owns a huge tract of land; a few very wealthy families and a handful of longtime residents own the rest. There is no telephone service; none of the roads are paved; and only the Park Service and full-time residents are allowed to have cars.

Late in the 19th century, Thomas Carnegie, brother of Andrew, was snubbed as too nouveau riche by the ultra-snobby club on nearby Jekyll Island. So he bought the southern end of Cumberland and built several mansions. One of them, Greyfield, was turned into an inn by some of Carnegie's descendants. Oliver and Mary Jo Ferguson, the husband and wife who operate Greyfield, are old friends of the Kennedys', and John and Carolyn had visited them several times. The rehearsal dinner and reception were held at the inn, a great rectangular frame house surrounded by oaks, and several in the wedding party stayed there. Janet Ferguson, Oliver's sister and a jewelry designer, is another good friend of the Kennedys', and made the couple's rings.

Clearly, the Fergusons were the key agents on the ground for this covert operation. On July 17, Mary Jo Ferguson wrote a note to the National Park Service requesting a permit to hold a "wedding ceremony" on Cumberland Island. The wedding would be held at the First African Baptist Church, near the northernmost point of the island. In the weeks leading up to that date, the Fergusons discreetly arranged all the supplies and staff for the dinner and the reception. Charlie Taylor, who owns a company on the mainland that provided some of the food, says he was "put on notice" several weeks ago that "a big party" was planned for Greyfield. He was impressed by the orchestration of the event, as he watched boats carry tents and tables over to Cumberland, but had no suspicion whom the party was for.

When the time came to get a marriage license, Mary Jo Ferguson was again given the mission. She contacted Martin Gillette, a probate judge near the town of St. Marys on the mainland. Ferguson asked if Gillette could arrange for a marriage license to be issued to someone famous, whose name she didn't mention. Gillette evidently allowed it wouldn't be a problem. About 10 days before the wedding, he spoke to chief probate clerk Shirley Wise about it. "He said there's going to be a marriage that needs to be confidential," Wise said.

On the Thursday before the wedding, Gillette told Wise to "pick up the blood-test lady"--Alice Hughes, a lab assistant--and drive to the St. Marys airport. Wise said she found the clandestine nature of the affair a bit frightening. "I'm not a person who takes risks," she said. Arriving at the airport, they met David Sayre, Janet Ferguson's husband, and he took them to a four-seater plane on the runway. They climbed in and were introduced to Carolyn Bessette, a name that didn't mean anything to Wise and Hughes. Wise began asking questions. She finally realized who the couple were when she asked Bessette what name she would use after the marriage. "Carolyn Bessette Kennedy," Bessette said. "That's when I knew what our assignment was," said Wise. "I'm sure my eyeballs got large." Bessette was very cordial, Wise said, and asked them not to tell anyone about the wedding. Then her plane took off for Cumberland.

When Kennedy arrived by plane, David Sayre brought him into the airport office, where the two women waited. Wise says, "TV doesn't do him justice." He was wearing jeans and sneakers and a baseball cap turned backward. "He was as nice a gentleman as you would want to meet," said Wise. (Mary Jo Ferguson paid for the license: $30.52.)

By Friday night, about 40 close friends and relatives had gathered for the rehearsal dinner on Greyfield's veranda. Senator Edward Kennedy gave a humorous toast at the dinner recalling John's childhood and quoted some poetry that sister Caroline had written about John when she was 10 or 12 years old. Caroline gave a toast that left many of the guests in tears. Finally, it was John's turn. He toasted his bride with the words, "I am the happiest man alive."

The next day, the moment of truth arrived. The drive from Greyfield to the small clapboard chapel takes 45 minutes along narrow, rutted roads. Its altar is a simple wooden stand, and its cross consists of two sticks held together by string. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' longtime butler, Efigenio Pinhiero, decorated the little church with Cumberland's wildflowers and vines. According to Bill Carroll of the National Park Service, he and about 10 others, including local deputies from the mainland and private security guards, formed a loose ring around the church to provide security. The guests began arriving in the early evening, and the ceremony started at about 7:30.

Bessette walked down the aisle, wearing a fluid, bias-cut dress of pearl-white crepe. A panel floated from the waist in the back, in a suggestion of a train. She wore a veil of silk tulle, and her crystal-beaded satin sandals were from Manolo Blahnik, designer of pricey, fashionable shoes. In her hands, covered by long white gloves, she carried a small bouquet of lilies of the valley. The groom wore a dark blue single-breasted suit, designed by Gordon Henderson, with a white pique vest and pale blue silk tie. His boutonniere was made of cornflowers, the favorite flower of his father, and he wore his father's watch.

Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, the matron of honor, walked ahead of Carolyn. Caroline's two daughters, Tatiana and Rose, were flower girls and her son Jack, 3, was the ring bearer. "Why is Carolyn dressed like that?" Jack asked, creating a ripple of laughter. Anthony Radziwill, the son of Jackie's sister Lee, served as best man. The vows were the standard Roman Catholic liturgy. Kennedy and Bessette had received permission from a bishop to hold a Catholic ceremony in a Protestant church. The deacon was a Jesuit from the church in New York City where Jackie was baptized, confirmed and mourned. Caroline's husband Edwin Schlossberg, Bessette's sister Lisa and her husband, Senator Kennedy and William Kennedy Smith (John stood by Smith during his rape trial) all read Scripture. Others attending included Victoria Reggie, the Senator's wife, and Maurice Tempelsman, Jackie's companion for many years. David Davis, a gospel singer from a nearby town in Florida, sang Amazing Grace and Will the Circle Be Unbroken a cappella.

Denis Reggie, Senator Kennedy's brother-in-law, played the Lord Snowdon role of official photographer. With the ceremony completed, the couple returned down the aisle together, and Reggie took the now famous picture of them descending the chapel's simple wooden steps, John kissing the hand of his beaming bride. They walked over to a nearby fence, and Bessette stood next to Kennedy with her arms around him. Then she felt a tug on her bouquet. A wild horse had stretched its neck over the fence and was nibbling the flowers.

The party drove back to Greyfield to dine on shrimp, artichokes, grilled swordfish and lemon-raspberry ice cream. More details were not forthcoming since the staff had all signed confidentiality agreements. But it is known that Senator Kennedy gave a toast more poignant than the one the previous evening. He invoked the names of John's parents and said how proud they would have been; once again many of those present were brought to tears.

Then the couple had their first dance. The song they chose was Forever in My Life by the artist formerly known as Prince. "There comes a time," the lyrics run, "in ev'ry man's life/ When he gets tired of foolin' around/ Juggling hearts in a three- ring circus/...Forever, forever, baby, I want U forever./ I wanna keep U 4 the rest of my life." Not Ira Gershwin exactly but an apt and amusing sentiment.

Who is the woman who captured the heart of John Kennedy, a man whose combination of looks, wealth, pedigree and ease of manner exceeds that of any prince? Friends quoted in the press say Bessette is hip and determined, a natural socializer who knows how to get what she wants. But she is also a likable, kind human being, they say. She was raised in affluent Greenwich, Connecticut. Her parents divorced when she was a child, and Bessette grew up with her mother, a school administrator who eventually was remarried to a prominent doctor. Bessette attended a Catholic high school and went on to Boston University, where she majored in elementary education.

After graduating, she worked in marketing for a company that owned a string of nightclubs throughout New England. Then she moved to a job with a Calvin Klein store in Boston. She was spotted by some Calvin Klein executives and brought down to the main office in New York City, where she became a publicist. Six feet tall, willowy and beautiful, Bessette was no wallflower. In college, she went out with an heir to the Benetton fashion fortune; before she started seeing Kennedy, her boyfriend was Michael Bergin, a Calvin Klein underwear model. She quickly impressed Klein and his wife Kelly, according to W, the fashion-industry trade magazine. She was also, says W, known to get into screaming matches with colleagues over decisions and to win.

It has been a matter of dispute, but now scholars of the subject agree that Bessette and Kennedy first met in 1992, when he chatted her up one day in Central Park as she was running. At the time, he was seeing actress Daryl Hannah. Shortly afterward, Kennedy appeared at Calvin Klein. One of Bessette's tasks was to help celebrities do their shopping, and she was given the Kennedy assignment. That day he bought three suits.

Kennedy did not break up with Hannah until after his mother's death, in the spring of 1994. Kennedy and Hannah had been together for more than five years, although it was said that his mother disapproved of the match. Sometime in 1993, before he split with Hannah, Kennedy and Bessette began seeing each other. In 1995 she moved into Kennedy's loft in TriBeCa, a trendy area of downtown Manhattan.

In February their lovers' quarrel in Central Park was captured on an amateur's videotape, which tabloid TV shows replayed over and over again. Yelling, Bessette and Kennedy shoved each other, and he took a ring (possibly an engagement ring) from her finger. Before he stalked off, he also tried to grab the dog they owned together, but she screamed, "You've got my ring--you're not getting my dog!" What the TV clip usually did not include was the reconciliation, which occurred within minutes of the fight. The pair kissed and were seen together the next night at a dinner.

Now they are husband and wife. The marriage caps a period of consolidation in Kennedy's life. After he left his job as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan in 1993, he seemed to drift. But his upstart political magazine George (a year old with the October 1966 issue) is doing respectably both in content and, it appears, as a business. The next step after getting a job was to find a woman to marry, and Kennedy has settled this matter as well, finding someone chic, canny and appealing. Having established himself in these ways, Kennedy is in a position to move forward, and the question on everyone's mind is--to what?

--Reported by Bonnie Angelo/ New York, Kelly Keane/Washington and Polly Powers Stramm/St. Marys

With reporting by BONNIE ANGELO/ NEW YORK, KELLY KEANE/WASHINGTON AND POLLY POWERS STRAMM/ST. MARYS