“The Night America’s Most Famous Couple Disappeared to Marry: Inside the Secret Island Wedding of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette—A Candlelit Ceremony Hidden From the World.”

John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette‘s wedding has gone down in history as an effortlessly elegant celebration that reflected their famously private romance.

Nearly 30 years ago, the couple exchanged vows at the First African Baptist Church on Cumberland Island, just off the coast of Georgia, on Sept. 21, 1996. There were only 40 guests in attendance.

The church held just eight wooden pews and had no air conditioning. Its remote setting was central to JFK Jr. and Bessette’s efforts to keep the event hidden from the press.

It took six months of meticulous planning to pull off the quiet nuptials, requiring “the skill of James Bond and the whole CIA,” Letitia Baldrige, former White House chief of staff to JFK. Jr.’s late mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, told PEOPLE.

Their officiant, Rev. Charles J. O’Byrne told Liz McNeil and RoseMarie Terenzio for their book JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography that “There was real joy and love between the two of them. They were both very excited about this and they wanted as much of the ceremony as possible to reflect them.”

JFK Jr. and Bessette’s wedding was dramatized in Love Story — FX’s portrayal of the couple’s romance, which premiered on Feb. 12.

Here’s everything to know about JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette’s wedding.

They quietly wed in 1996

JFK Jr. and Bessette exchanged vows in an ultra-private wedding ceremony on Sept. 21, 1996, on Georgia’s Cumberland Island.

“They couldn’t have chosen a more obscure place,” Chris McLean, a builder living in nearby Fernandina Beach, Fla., told PEOPLE at the time.

As the wedding drew closer, locals started to notice guests and staff arriving by plane and ferry. Still, the couple’s plans remained largely under wraps — helped by confidentiality agreements signed by attendees and workers.

As PEOPLE noted at the time, there was a shared feeling among island residents that the son of a beloved president and his bride were entitled to a private celebration.

JFK Jr. and Bessette married at the First African Baptist Church

The ceremony was held at the First African Baptist Church. Rev. O’Byrne of Manhattan’s Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, where Jackie’s funeral mass was held in 1994, led the brief Catholic service, reading by flashlight in the dim, candlelit church.

In the book, she co-authored with McNeil, Terenzio reflected on the photo by Denis Reggie they decided to release showing the newlyweds as they left the church.

“The photo — I mean, it’s ridiculously perfect. Carolyn coming down the steps looking at John while he’s kissing her hand, the quaint church behind them,” she wrote of the image that later landed on the cover of PEOPLE. “They look so happy, like a prince and a princess in a fairy tale.”

The Greyfield Inn, a nine-bedroom mansion, was the location of the rehearsal dinner — where the groom toasted the woman who made him the “happiest man alive” — and the reception. The owner of the inn, Gogo Ferguson, told McNeil and Terenzio for their book about why the couple wanted to have their wedding on the island and in that church.

“One of my cousins had told him a story that when Robert Kennedy was shot, Beulah Alberty, who was the deacon of the church, came racing down to tell everyone around the island. And the entire island gathered, and they had a service in that church for Bobby,” she said. “That really meant something to him. That’s why, when I was like, ‘Couldn’t you just get married on the dunes or at the Greyfield compound?’ he insisted on the church.”

Highlights of the post-ceremony celebration included a three-tier white wedding cake, a first dance to Prince‘s “Forever in My Life” and Sen. Ted Kennedy‘s toast, which brought everyone to tears, his spokeswoman Melody Miller told PEOPLE at the time.

Only 40 people attended their wedding

On Sept. 21, just 40 guests gathered inside the church. Among them was JFK Jr.’s cousin Anthony Radziwill, who served as best man.

Also in attendance was Jackie’s longtime companion, financier Maurice Tempelsman. JFK. Jr.’s sister, Caroline Kennedy, arrived with her husband, architect-planner Edwin Schlossberg, and their three children. Rose and Tatiana were flower girls, and Jack was the ring bearer.

From the bride’s side, Bessette’s mother, Ann Messina Freeman, attended along with her sister, Lisa Ann Bessette, and brother-in-law Michael Roman.

Jackie’s presence was certainly felt by the bride and groom at their wedding. Her friend Rachel “Bunny” Mellon, who designed the White House Rose Garden, selected the flowers for the bridal party. Meanwhile, her longtime butler, Efigenio Pinheiro, arranged the greenery in the church’s altar area.

Bessette wore a custom Narcisco Rodriguez gown down the aisle

Bessette’s wedding gown was designed by Narciso Rodriguez, a friend from her days at Calvin Klein. A year after she wore his custom creation — a timeless, pearl-colored silk crepe floor-length gown, a hand-rolled tulle silk veil and long silk gloves — the designer launched his own label.

“It was a great moment in my career but also a beautiful moment in my personal life,” Rodriguez told Vogue in September 2018. “Someone I loved very much asked me to make the most important dress of her life.”

Ferguson told McNeil and Terenzio about what really happened with the dress hours before the wedding.

“Getting that dress on took an hour because it was so cut on the bias and so fitted. It was like pouring cream over her body. She looked like a calla lilly,” the inn owner said. “Narciso was trying to sort of sew her into the dress. We were all in such a hurry ’cause we were so late to get to the church. I didn’t sense that she was nervous at all—she was excited.”

The simplicity and elegance of the $40,000 dress made a lasting impression on the fashion world. Former Harper’s Bazaar editor-in-chief Kate Betts, who worked at Vogue at the time of the wedding, described the dress as “revolutionary.”

“Vera Wang and Carolina Herrera were simplifying their designs, but not as simple as a slip dress,” Betts told Vanity Fair in 2021. “It crystallized that trend [minimalism] in fashion. That was her aesthetic, and her wedding dress was a very, very bold expression of that minimalism.”