“She didn’t think he was serious,” their close friend Gustavo Paredes revealed to PEOPLE in 2014. “He couldn’t believe she turned him down. It had never happened before.” Three years prior, the once-most eligible bachelor, who’s been dubbed “America’s prince” and the Prince of Camelot, married his princess. “Carolyn has changed my life in a way that I never thought was possible, and just made me tonight the happiest man alive,” the son of former President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedysaid at his secret wedding. On the anniversary of the American royal couple’s untimely death, take a look back at some of JFK. Jr. and Bessette’s best photos. Next, The Kennedys in PARADE: A Look Back