The senator, 55, marries Julia Hart, 39, a member of the Senate's professional staff, in front of 150 relatives and close friends.

10:45 AM EDT on Sunday, April 17, 2005

BY SCOTT MacKAY
Journal Staff Writer

WEST POINT, N.Y. -- Sen. Jack Reed married Julia Hart in a traditional Roman Catholic ceremony at the Catholic chapel on the United States Military Academy campus.

Reed, 55, and Hart, 39, who works on the Senate's professional staff, exchanged vows on a sun-washed afternoon on the picturesque West Point grounds, where Reed was once a U.S. Army cadet.

Special to The Journal / Alan Zale

Julia Hart and Jack Reed leave the chapel after their wedding yesterday in West Point, N.Y. Rhode Island's senior senator met Hart in 2002 on a Senate trip to Afghanistan.

Hart, an Iowa native, was respledant in an elegant, understated champagne-colored Oleg Cassini strapless gown with a chapel-length train. She wore pearls and carried a bouquet of champagne roses.

Reed dressed in a tuxedo. After the service was over, he said, "It is a very happy day."

The service was held at the Chapel of the Most Holy Trinity, the century-old Norman Gothic church that serves Roman Catholic cadets. Sun streamed through the Tiffany stained-glass windows as the 150 guests queued up for the 12:30 p.m. service.

Reed has a wry side, but the Democrat is mostly buttoned-down and serious, a political figure known more for workaholism than frivolity. He and Hart decided on an intimate wedding where the focus was on family, close friends and a service performed by the Rev. Raymond Malm of St. Michael the Archangel of South Providence, where Reed has been a parishioner for more than 20 years.

Senator Reed wanted to be known yesterday, friends said, only as Jack, the newlywed. He wore a wide smile, as did his bride.

THERE WAS SCANT fodder for paparazzi; there were no senators, celebrities or governors on the guest list. Reed didn't invite other members of Rhode Island's Washington delegation.

Reed, Hart and Reed's staff politely but insistently kept journalists at bay. Not even a New York Times reporter covering the event for the newspaper's Sunday 'Vows' wedding feature was granted an interview or allowed to attend the service.

After the ceremony, the couple posed for wedding photographs on Trophy Point on the campus, a scenic vista overlooking the Hudson River. They treated their guests to a sirloin dinner at a reception held on campus, which lasted about five hours.

Last night, the couple had a one-night honeymoon at an undisclosed Manhattan hotel. They may take a trip later this year, Reed said in an interview last week, but their respective schedules are too busy right now for a vacation.

The spotlight was on people far from Rhode Island's cozy political constellation. Beaming proudly was Brigadier Gen. Daniel Kaufman, academic dean at the academy, a political scientist who was in Reed's cadet company as an undergraduate and later taught political science with Reed.

"We are all so happy for Jack today," said Kaufman, an attendant. "We've been friends and colleagues for 40 years."

Two old Reed buddies from La Salle Academy in Providence -- John Kelly, the best man, and Stephen Lepre, an attendant -- were in the groom's party, which was rounded out by Col. Patrick Finnegan, professor and head of the law department at the academy.

Guests included prominent Rhode Islanders, but the only one with a major elected political portfolio was Thomas DiLuglio, the former lieutenant governor.

Among the familiar names from the business community were Terrence Murray, retired Fleet Financial CEO; Malcolm Chace, philanthropist and investor; Paul Moran of the McLaughlin & Moran beer distributing family; David Duffy, the veteran Rhode Island public relations executive; Jim Winoker, a Providence businessman; Bernard Buonnano, a retired lawyer; and Marcia Riesman, widow of Robert Reisman, a Providence business leader who was close to Reed.

The guest list was liberally salted with Reed aides and political advisers -- some of whom have moved onto other jobs. J.B. Poersch, Reed's former top aide, who is executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, read Genesis 1:26-28 at the ceremony.

Todd Andrews, Reed's former press secretary, and his wife Julie Andrews, another onetime Democratic Party operative, attended, as did longtime Reed staffers Ray Simone, Lynn Lombardi and Jack Casey. Sister Ann Keefe from St. Michael's also attended.

Special to The Journal / Alan Zale

Patricia Blood adjusts the wedding gown of her sister, Julia Hart, yesterday at Trophy Point, on the grounds of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., after Hart's marriage to Sen. Jack Reed.

REED AND HART met on a Senate trip to Afghanistan in 2002.

They have dated since August, 2003. She works for the Senate Interparliamentry Services Office, the agency that organizes travel exchanges between the Senate and legislative bodies of foreign countries, as well as other official travel. Hart is a graduate of the University of Maryland who has worked for the Senate since her college days.

The couple were engaged the day before Thanksgiving in New York City. Reed proposed at a Manhattan bistro just before they attended a Gilbert Stuart exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

They decided against having the wedding in Rhode Island, friends said, so that the ceremony could be kept small and meaningful, free from gawkers and the inevitable demands to bloat the guest list with political and community leaders. It is the first marriage for both Reed and Hart.

West Point is a place that looms large in Reed's life. He is a graduate of the class of 1971. After he received a graduate degree at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, Reed returned to West Point to teach political science.

Now Reed is chairman of the academy's Board of Visitors, the West Point equivalent of a traditional college's board of trustees. The Board of Visitors is comprised of senators, members of the U.S. House and President Bush's appointees.

Scripture readings were from the Book of Genesis, Psalm 145, the first letter of John, and Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Reading from the Bible were Poersch, Sister Theresa Hart, a Dominican nun and the bride's aunt, and Patrick Hart, the bride's godfather. The music was traditional, celebratory and included a trumpet. The pieces included Schubert's Ave Maria as a prelude; Clark's Trumpet Voluntary as a processional and Purcell's Trumpet Tune in D as a recssional.

After the wedding, Hart's niece, Reilly Blood, and her nephew, Colin Hart, were baptized, a ceremony the newlyweds watched.

Hart's matron of honor was her sister, Patricia Blood. The attendants to the bride -- all six of whom were either Hart's or Reed's nieces -- wore tea-length black strapless dresses and black cardigans.

"Jack is very happy today. We are all very happy for him," said Poersch.