REMOTE ISLAND SHELTERED KENNEDY NUPTIALS.

Byline: Kevin Sack New York Times

The privileged have sought refuge on Cumberland Island for more than 100 years. Throughout the last century, the island's pristine forest of moss-draped oaks has been home to Pittsburgh's Carnegies and New York's Rockefellers and Atlanta's Candlers.

John F. Kennedy Jr. is only the latest member of that elite class to come here seeking seclusion. And in the end, the island's historic devotion to protecting the privacy of those who wish not to be seen enabled Kennedy to marry Carolyn Bessette on Saturday without intrusion by the paparazzi, who are paid to expose his life.

Those who attended the private wedding said the families and their guests found it thrilling to have outwitted the news media.

``It was wonderful to have no press around,'' said one person present at the ceremony, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ``We were so excited to have fooled everybody.''

Liz McComis, who helped prepare rooms at the small Greyfield Inn before the wedding and washed dishes after the reception, said the relief was tangible once the families concluded that their stealth planning had succeeded. ``It was nice to see them relax once they realized it was going to be OK and that they would not be hounded,'' she said.

Situated off the southeast Georgia coast, this nearly 20-mile-long island has no bridge access, no telephone lines, no paved roads and no accommodations other than campsites and a handful of rooms at the Greyfield Inn, an elegant old Carnegie compound where the wedding party stayed and where the reception was held.

In 1970, the National Park Service purchased most of the island from the Carnegie family and later designated it a National Seashore. Small portions of the island, however, remain private property, including Greyfield. About 35 people live on the island for some part of the year, and visitation is limited by the Park Service to 300 people a day, most of whom travel by ferry from St. Mary's, Ga.

Because the island's remarkable ecosystems - saltwater marsh, maritime forest and high-dune beach - are virtually untouched, environmentalists consider Cumberland one of the most treasured resources on the Eastern Seaboard. It is not uncommon to walk 10 miles of beach here without seeing other footprints.

``If Mr. Kennedy wanted privacy, this was a good place to find it,'' said Newton Sikes, chief of operations here for the National Park Service.

The planners of the Kennedy-Bessette wedding went to extraordinary lengths to keep the festivities secret. Caterers and staff at the reception were required to sign confidentiality agreements. People planning the event on the island deceived their friends and refused to discuss details on cellular telephones, fearing that their conversations would be picked up by outsiders.

Guests were not invited until the Tuesday before the Saturday wedding. Most of the visitors were shuttled onto the island by boats that landed at Greyfield's private dock. Others were flown in on tiny planes and landed on a grass strip where the island's wild horses often graze.

Like many island residents, Carol Ruckdeschel, a biologist who lives in a house next to the small, whitewashed chapel where the ceremony was performed, began to hear a buzz about a celebrity wedding early last week. Rumored names included Oprah Winfrey, Brooke Shields, Goldie Hawn - and Kennedy.

But it was not until the Kennedy clan began arriving outside Ruckdeschel's horse barn and pig pen Saturday afternoon that she was sure. ``I took my bowl of popcorn and a beer and a milk crate and sat out there in the horse barn and watched,'' she said. ``I just thought it was interesting. I said, `I'm going to kick myself later if I just go in and read my book.' ''

The marriage license was signed and blood tests were taken inside two private planes, one carrying Bessette and one carrying Kennedy, that landed several hours apart Thursday night at the tiny St. Mary's airport.

Earlier this month, Mary Jo Ferguson, one of the operators of the Greyfield Inn, called Judge Martin Gillette of Camden County Probate Court and asked him whether special arrangements could be made to issue a marriage license for a VIP. Without knowing who was involved, Gillette instructed his chief clerk, Shirley Wise, to go to the airport at a designated time.

Wise said she was ushered onto a single-engine plane and found the bride-to-be. ``About the fifth or sixth question, the application asks the designated surname after the ceremony,'' Wise said. ``At the point she told me it would be Bessette-Kennedy is when I realized that it was John Kennedy.'' She added, ``Carolyn asked us on the airplane to please keep it quiet, that they had gone to great lengths.''

Even on the Wednesday after the wedding, those who planned and were hosts to the celebration refused to discuss it.

At Greyfield, a manager warned journalists that they were trespassing and tersely asked them to leave the grounds without taking pictures. And in a brief interview, Janet Ferguson, a Carnegie descendant and part-time resident of the island, said she had pledged not to disclose any details of the wedding she helped plan for her friend, Kennedy, until the newlyweds had returned from their honeymoon and began discussing it themselves.

``I am truly in respect of John and Carolyn's privacy and my family's privacy,'' Ferguson said.

Kennedy had traveled to the island several times. He served on the board of a foundation led by Ferguson that tried unsuccessfully to convert a decaying mansion on Cumberland into an artists' colony.

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Photo: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette were wed la st week in this plain, whitewashed church on Cumberland Island, Ga.

The New York Times