Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 10, 1990 TAG: 9006100059
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
They swore mutual commitment to the oppressed - "the people who have disappeared in El Salvador, the children in shelters in New York."
The bride, 30, is the daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy and is executive director the human rights center in New York City which bears his name.
The bridegroom, 32, is New York Gov. Mario Cuomo's son and chief political adviser. He currently heads a Manhattan foundation to help the homeless.
The elaborate, closed wedding, attended by 300 people, was at the Cathedral of St. Matthew, a Catholic church about a half-mile from the White House and the one where President John F. Kennedy's funeral was held in 1963.
Kerry Kennedy, the late president's niece, was just 3 years old when he was assassinated, just 8 when her father was gunned down. She was the seventh of Robert and Ethel Kennedy's children.
The bride walked the aisle alone as the entire Kennedy clan, including Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and a planeload of Cuomo relatives and intimates looked on.
Kerry Kennedy's cousin, Maria Shriver, the bridegroom's father, and several brothers and sisters of both the bride and bridegroom gave readings during the hour-plus wedding Mass, celebrated by the Rev. Gerard C. Creedon of County Cork, Ireland, a longtime Kennedy family friend now performing Catholic charity work in nearby Alexandria, Va.
The couple drew warm cheers and applause as they emerged from the ceremony. A three-abreast, block-long flotilla of stretch limousines then carried the wedding party and virtually all their guests to a reception at Hickory Hill, the McLean, Va., home of Ethel Kennedy, the bride's mother.
The ceremony blended classical and African-American music, and featured Ruth Brown, the star soloist of New York's "Black and Blue."
The wedding had been informally billed as the creation of "Cuomolot," a successor to the fabled land of Camelot so revered by John F. Kennedy. But friends and family alike pleaded for an abatement of any political speculations.
"This is not a dynastic accomplishment; this is two people who decided to get married," William Cunningham, an adviser to Gov. Cuomo, said a day earlier.
But Frank Mankiewicz, former press secretary to Robert F. Kennedy, observed that if a new dynasty emerges, "It's got awful good bloodlines."
Both Andrew Cuomo and Kerry Kennedy Cuomo are law-school graduates. They had dated for nearly two years before he offered her a diamond ring last Valentine's day.
Cuomo has worked for his father's political campaigns since he was a teen-ager, and managed his gubernatorial victories in 1982 and 1986. He plans to run his father's campaign for re-election this year as well.
After a six-day honeymoon in the Caribbean, the couple plans to settle in Queens, N.Y.
by CNB