Kennedy Weddings: A Family Album

It's often said that the Kennedys are the closest thing to royalty that we Americans have, and it's true that we share an obsession with them that parallels the British obsession with their royal family. We admire their talent, good looks, and wealth, and we respect their political successes. We also feel a connection with their familial bonds, as well as compassion for this famous family haunted by persistent tragedies.

The images of the Kennedy family weddings are at once glamorous beyond imagination and everyday in their focus on family and the rituals of marriage. Jay Mulvaney has worked closely with the Kennedy family to produce a book of remarkably joyful and exuberant moments of three generations of Kennedys, beginning with the marriage of Joe and Rose, then moving to the second generation of weddings that includes John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier, Eunice Kennedy and Sargent Shriver, Robert Kennedy and Ethel Skakel, and Patricia Kennedy and Peter Lawford. A third generation of Kennedy weddings concludes the book, including the wedding of John Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger, Caroline Kennedy and Ed Schlossberg, and Kerry Kennedy and Andrew Cuomo.

Mulvaney writes with uncloying simplicity of the events during and surrounding each couple's wedding day, sharing quotes from guests, relatives, and the happy couples themselves. Clear, rich photos, some of them never before printed or not publicly seen since the wedding, evoke each special day. While much attention has been given to the sadder events involving the Kennedys, Kennedy Weddings: A Family Album reminds us in a single book of some of the best and brightest memories of one of America's most beloved families. --Kris Law