Wedding of Jackie Bouvier & John F. Kennedy by Lisa Larsen (1953)

Lisa Larsen (1925-1959) was one of LIFE’s poioneering female photojournalists. Born in Germany, she moved to the United States as a teenager. She started out as a picture file clerk at Black Star, but soon became a freelance photographer for many publications, including Vogue, The New York Times, Parade, Glamour, Charm, Holiday, and LIFE.

After 1948, the bulk of Larsen’s photojournalism was contract work for LIFE. In the beginning of her career at the influential magazine, she was assigned mainly entertainment and fashion stories, such as photographing the Vanderbilts, Kennedys, Bing Crosby, and the Duke of Windsor as well as the Greenbriar Hotel (source).

Bouvier and Kennedy were married on September 12, 1953, at St. Mary’s Church in Newport, Rhode Island, in a Mass celebrated by Boston’s Archbishop Richard Cushing. The wedding was considered the social event of the season with an estimated 700 guests at the ceremony and 1,200 at the reception that followed at Hammersmith Farm. The wedding dress, now housed in the Kennedy Library in Boston, Massachusetts, and the dresses of her attendants were created by designer Ann Lowe of New York City.

Lisa Larsen, Wedding of Jackie Bouvier & John F. Kennedy, September 1953 via

Lisa Larsen, Wedding of Jackie Bouvier & John F. Kennedy, September 1953 via

Lisa Larsen, Wedding of Jackie Bouvier & John F. Kennedy, September 1953 via

Lisa Larsen, John and Jacqueline Kennedy at Their Wedding Reception, September 1953 via

Jacqueline and John F. Kennedy as a Young Couple by Orlando Suero (1954)

In January 1954, the handsome junior senator from Massachusetts and his glamorous wife moved into a three-story townhouse at 3321 Dent Place in Georgetown. Although they would live here for only five months, the house was their first home after their wedding— the society event of the decade—and a place from which they could begin to prepare for the next step in their lives, one that would take John and Jacqueline Kennedy to the White House.

In May of that year, Orlando Suero, a photographer with the Three Lions Picture Agency on his first major assignment, spent five days with the Kennedys. In more than twenty photo sessions, Suero documented a typical week in the young couple’s life. He enjoyed their full cooperation and the intimate access that would later, as Jacqueline became more anxious about her family’s privacy, be denied to all but a few.

Suero’s photographs capture the idyllic quality of the young couple’s lives during their months in Georgetown. Not yet hounded by the media, John and Jacqueline in these images seem happier and more at ease than they would ever be again (source).

Jacqueline Kennedy by Orlando Suero, 1954 via

Jacqueline and John F. Kennedy by Orlando Suero, 1954 via

Jacqueline Kennedy by Orlando Suero, 1954 via

Jacqueline Kennedy by Orlando Suero, 1954 via

Jacqueline and John F. Kennedy by Orlando Suero, 1954 via

Jacqueline Kennedy by Orlando Suero, 1954 via

Jacqueline and John F. Kennedy by Orlando Suero, 1954 via