Free Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot by J. Randy Taraborrelli

Manhattanville. With her major in English and her minor in history, she was only an average student when she graduated in June 1949.
    Soon afterward, a tray holding a wide variety of diamonds from which Ethel would choose arrived at the Skakel home, sent by Bobby (an unusually generous gesture for a member of the thrifty Kennedy clan). Ethel chose an exquisite, large- sized, marquis diamond. Unlike most grooms-to-be, Bobby was not with Ethel when she made her selection. (At least Ethel had the opportunity to select her own ring. Future
    father-in-law Joseph would select Jackie’s engagement ring, as well as Joan’s!)
    Big Ann was delighted with her daughter’s decision to marry Bobby. She realized that Ethel’s marriage into the rich and famous Kennedy clan could raise the Skakels to the top of Catholic society. From the time the engagement was an- nounced, Ann took charge of planning the various pre- wedding parties and other family gatherings. Ann sent out twelve hundred invitations, forcing employees at the small Greenwich post office into overtime work.
    The day of the wedding started in typical madcap Skakel fashion. Years before, Big Ann had equipped her home with a beauty salon, believing that it would be cost-effective and convenient to have one in a household inhabited by so many females. The room was fully appointed with chairs, hair dry- ers, sinks, and an array of beauty products. On the day of the wedding, the bridesmaids had their hair and makeup done in the home salon by hairdressers brought in especially for the occasion. After their hair was perfectly coiffed, the young ladies went out on the grounds to mix with the male mem- bers of the bridal party, many of them Bobby’s hulking football-playing chums from Harvard. As unexpected high jinx got into full swing, several maidens ended up in the pool, their hairstyles ruined. “So typical of a Big Ann wed- ding,” one guest remarked to the press later.
    On June 17, 1950, twenty-two-year-old Ethel Skakel stood in the rear of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Greenwich on the arm of her father, George Skakel, about to marry Bobby Kennedy and forever join the ranks of the elite Kennedy family. In this well-planned and tastefully exe- cuted affair, she would be the first woman since Rose to take a Kennedy husband. All of Ethel’s attendants wore white
    lace over taffeta dresses with wide-brimmed, eggshell-white hats delicately trimmed with pink and white flowers. Ethel looked lovely in a white satin wide-neck gown with pearl- embroidered lace overskirt. The same lace held her fingertip- length tulle veil. Around her neck she wore a tasteful single-strand pearl necklace. In her arms she held a bouquet of lilies, stephanotis, and lilies of the valley, matching the white peonies and lilies that decorated the church. Also waiting to make its entrance was the Skakel-Kennedy bridal party, filled with young and promising relatives and friends, including Ethel’s and Bobby’s siblings.
    At the altar stood the handsome twenty-four-year-old groom, Bobby. Next to him was his best man, older brother John.
    As the two thousand guests, hundreds of whom were un- invited, crammed into the church, waiting for the ceremony to begin, the pipe-organ music began. In the pews, waiting amidst the gorgeous floral arrangements for the bride’s en- trance, sat the well-heeled, well-known guests, including diplomats, politicians, entertainers, and socialites. The bridesmaids entered, followed by Ethel, who appeared to be an ethereal cloud of white in her beautiful wedding finery. It was a memorable ceremony.
    “What I want for you is to have a life with Bobby as happy as the one I have had with his father,” Rose told Ethel afterward as she embraced her new daughter-in-law during the lavish reception at the Skakels’ Lake Avenue mansion. “Lots of children, Ethel. Have lots and lots of children. They’ll keep your marriage strong, as strong as mine.”
    From the start,