Sarah Pidgeon Teases Carolyn Bessette and JFK Jr.'s 'Surreal' Wedding Episode on “Love Story”
Sarah Pidgeon Teases Carolyn Bessette and JFK Jr.'s 'Surreal' Wedding Episode on “Love Story”
Julia MooreMon, March 2, 2026 at 6:21 PM UTC
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Paul Anthony Kelly as JFK Jr. (left) and Sarah Pidgeon as Carolyn Bessette (right) in FX's "Love Story"Credit: FX -
The upcoming episode of FX's Love Story: JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette will depict the couple's ultra-private 1996 wedding
Sarah Pidgeon, who plays Bessette, teased that the Georgia chapel where they tied the knot was recreated for the series and it was "completely magical" to film
New episodes of Love Story premiere Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on FX
Recreating Carolyn Bessette and John F. Kennedy Jr.'s ultra-private wedding for Love Story was a thrill for star Sarah Pidgeon.
The upcoming episode of the FX series, which stars Pidgeon as Bessette and Paul Anthony Kelly as JFK Jr., will bring to life the couple's secret 1996 wedding, which took place in a chapel on Georgia's Cumberland Island, with just 40 people in attendance.
"The whole thing was surreal," Pidgeon, 29, told Glamour of filming the wedding episode, which premieres Thursday, March 5. "Being in the chapel that they built to replicate the chapel that John and Carolyn were married in, the candlelight, seeing all of the cast members there as well — it was completely magical."
In keeping with the series' efforts to be as true to life as possible, Pidgeon said that the recreated scenes mimicked what she'd seen in The Lost Tapes documentary about the 1996 nuptials. "It felt so evocative of that," she said.
Sarah Pidgeon as Carolyn Bessette, Paul Anthony Kennedy as John F. Kennedy Jr. in "Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette"Credit: Eric Liebowitz/FX
"I felt so grateful to be working with such talented designers, from Rudy Mance, our costume designer, and all of the set decoration and production design," she continued. "It really... I felt like I was transported back to that time and to that chapel in Georgia."
Just as Carolyn's style was iconic, so, too, were her wedding looks, and Pidgeon teased that the wedding dress she wore for the episode was "so elegant."
The team behind Love Story had the same approach for all aspects of telling Carolyn and John's story for the screen. "We researched extensively, we read everything under the sun and we made sure that everything had an essence of truth and nothing felt like an aberration from their real story," creator Connor Hines told PEOPLE.
For their wedding in particular, executive producer Brad Simpson said, "We know a lot about their wedding, but we don't know everything — what was the night before, what the speeches were exactly like."
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The end result was "an interpretation based on all the research we'd done and what we thought about them as characters."
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Paul Anthony Kelly as John F. Kennedy Jr., Sarah Pidgeon as Carolyn Bessette in "Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette"Credit: FX
When Pidgeon was cast in the Ryan Murphy series and the first test shots of her and Kelly, 37, in character were shared, just days before production began, they were met with intense criticism. Pidgeon told PEOPLE that the backlash "reinforced and reminded me of just how beloved these people are, and people are protective of their story."
"I don't think it changed how I approached the role. It didn't change my impression of who Carolyn was," she said. "It reminded me of the weight of this responsibility and wanting to do these people justice."
The series is inspired by Elizabeth Beller’s book, Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and charts the "complex and heartbreaking journey of a couple whose private love became a national obsession," per FX. "John and Carolyn’s connection was immediate, electric and undeniable. As their love story unfolded on a national stage, the intense fame and media attention that came along with it threatened to rip them apart," the synopsis continues.
Along with Pidgeon and Kelly, Love Story stars Naomi Watts as Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Grace Gummer as Caroline Kennedy, Alessandro Nivola as Calvin Klein, Leila George as Kelly Klein, Sydney Lemmon as Lauren Bessette and Constance Zimmer as Ann Marie Messina.
New episodes of Love Story premiere Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on FX and the next day on Hulu.
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