World's oldest newlyweds: How a 100-year-old man, his 102-year-old bride found love and made history
While Ibrahim Mbogo, 95, and Tabitha Wangui, 90 were saying "I do" at a picturesque white wedding in Mukurweni, Nyeri, last year, in celebration of their 65-year-old love, Bernard Littman, 100, and Marjorie Fiterman 102 were marking their nine-year-old love at their Philaphedia, US, nursing home.
The two love stories tell the story of a strong bond of love and resilience despite a couple's advanced age-a confirmation that love endures irrespective of age.
Wangui told the media the secret to keeping her marriage (they had gone through a Kikuyu wedding), was "respecting her husband" through the years.
While the Kenyan couple was celebrating their more than six decades of love together, the Philadephia couple was marking a unique celebration - their century birthdays and cementing their nine-year-old newly found union in their advanced years.
They were celebrating not only their birthdays but rejoicing for their recognition of another milestone - the world's oldest newlywed couple, a title awarded to them by the Guinness World Records.
Bernard's and Marjorie's story
According to the Guinness World Records, the couple met at a Philadelphia nursing home after their spouses passed. Unknowingly, the two moved into the same senior living facility in Philadelphia, USA. None of them expected to find new love just a few doors down.
"We found love while living at our Philadelphia nursing home after our longtime spouses passed away and, after dating and wedding, we have been recognised by the Guinness World Records as the world's oldest newlywed couple," said Marjorie as recounted in the Guinness World Records website. The two have a nine-year-old relationship.
According to the source whose organisation curates a database of 40,000 records that is a constant source of fascination worldwide, Marjorie, and Bernard, could have met decades earlier when both attended the University of Pennsylvania.
However, as fate had it, the two did not enter a romantic relationship. Marjorie later pursued teaching while Bernard undertook an engineering career and their paths never crossed again until at the nursing home.
According to the records, "Bernard hit it off" immediately with Marjorie when they first met at a costume party on their floor, and a romance began shortly after they had their first date on the same day one of his great-granddaughters was hosting her birthday party for him.
"Bernard and Marjorie had each spent more than 60 years married to their first respective spouses before they became widowed and moved a few doors down from each other in the same senior living facility in the so-called city of Brotherly Love," narrates the Records book.
Reportedly, the two meet at a costume party on their floor, allowing them to interact, and "their romance ignited soon after".
Their story gets juicy as the two lovebirds reportedly started dating at Bernard's great-granddaughter's birthday party. The party allowed them to bond over shared meals and participate in theater productions staged by the nursing facility.
The couple's romance was spiced up during the Covid-19 pandemic which put their love to the test. The two cared for each other at a time when the pandemic disproportionately affected elderly people in their communities. Bernard's granddaughter, Sarah Sicherman, told journalists that the two were "so lucky to have found each other and be a support system for each other during the pandemic".
So touching was this support system that the two decided to take their relationship to the next level and get married at a ceremony in their retirement community, defying assumptions about how they might choose to remain unwed because of their age.
According to Sicherman, her grandfather and the "love of his life" did the unpredictable and unimaginable.
Although the family assumed the couple would choose to remain unmarried because of their ages, it was "certainly a surprise" to hear they wanted to take their relationship to the next step. After a nine-year relationship, the two lovebirds tied the knot on May 19, 2024, making the pair the oldest couple to marry (aggregate age) with their combined ages of 202 years and 271 days.
"Today my 100-year-old grandfather married his 102-year-old girlfriend. They both had 60-plus years of marriage to their first spouses and found love again at 100 years old".
The granddaughter told the media the family was thrilled about the couple's decision.
Marjorie and Bernard's wedding was held at the same senior living facility where they first met. Four generations of Bernard's family attended the event while four witnesses helped with the white stands of the canopy that supported the four poles according to a Jewish wedding. The two are Jewish.
The couple was whisked in their wheelchairs to the event, described as an extraordinary event and wedding by Rabbi Adam Wohlberg, the officiating official.
"I did not want to deliver the usual advice I give married couples, but Bernard and Marjorie have eventually reached the point where they were not just close friends, but husband and wife, and it felt like the right step to take," the Rabbi told journalists.
The two studied different degrees - Bernard becoming an engineer, and Marjorie a teacher. They never met while studying at the same university until they bounced into each other at the nursing facility decades later.
Although they both could have crossed paths years prior when they attended the University of Pennsylvania time, life seemingly has funny ways of making us wait.
Bernard credited his long life and happiness to reading and staying up-to-date, and Marjorie credits hers to buttermilk.
"They both enjoy each other's company, love each other's humour and intellect, and keep young, by reading and staying up-to-date," Sarah told journalists.
After their epistles of love and their celebrity-like wedding, the couple was ultimately considered for the Guinness World Record mark for the oldest couple to marry (aggregate age). They secured the title with a joint age of 202 years and 271 days.
You are never too old to find love.
