On this day in 1953, Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy, the future 35th president of the United States, marries Jacqueline Bouvier in Newport, Rhode Island. Seven years later, the couple would become the youngest president and first lady in American history.
Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy was born into a prominent New York family in 1929 and grew into an avid horsewoman and reader. In 1951, after graduating from George Washington University, Jackie, as she was called, took a tour of Europe.
That fall, she returned to the U.S. to begin her first job as the Washington Times-Herald’s “Inquiring Camera Girl.”
"A mere week and a half before Jacqueline Bouvier became a Kennedy, her wedding dress was famously destroyed in a Madison Avenue studio flood, causing her mother to turn to a little-known African-American designer named Ann Lowe for help.
Lowe came to their rescue and created the famous gown for a mere $500—a steal, even during that time—despite the fact that she was not publicly given credit for it."
Shortly afterward, she met a young, handsome senator from Massachusetts named John Kennedy at a dinner party in Georgetown. They dated over the next two years, during which time Jackie mused at the idea that she might actually marry a man who was allergic to horses, something she never thought she would have considered.
In 1953, the two were engaged, when Kennedy gave Jackie a 2.88-carat diamond-and-emerald ring from Van Cleef and Arpels.
