Together, the collective age of the bride and groom was nearly 200. But World War II veteran Harold Terens and his sweetheart Jeanne Swerlin proved that love is eternal as they tied the knot Saturday inland of the D-Day beaches in Normandy, France.
Their respective ages — he’s 100, she’s a youngster of just 96 — made their nuptials an almost double-century celebration.
Terens proposed to Swerlin in 2023, two years after they first met.
“This is probably the most exciting time I’ve ever had in 100 years of my life,” Terens said.
On her way into the nuptials, the bubbly bride-to-be said: “It’s not just for young people, love, you know? We get butterflies. And we get a little action, also.″
Harold Terens and Jeanne Swerlin of Florida got married on Saturday, June 8, in Carentan-Les-Marais, just a few miles from Utah Beach, where thousands of U.S. troops stormed ashore on June 6, 1944. The invasion ultimately led to the liberation of Nazi-occupied France and Germany’s defeat during World War II.
The location was the elegant stone-worked town hall of Carentan, a key initial D-Day objective that saw ferocious fighting after the June 6, 1944, Allied landings that helped rid Europe of Adolf Hitler’s tyranny.
The bride walked down the aisle of the city’s town hall in a floor-length pink dress to the sound of the song “I Will Always Love You.” The groom wore a blue suit with a war medal pinned to his lapel.
They were married by Carentan’s mayor and kissed to cheers from family members and onlookers when he pronounced them man and wife. (Since Terens and Swerlin aren’t French citizens and don’t live in the city, the wedding was symbolic and not legally binding.)
The newlyweds later attended a state dinner at the Élysée Palace in Paris with President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron, who congratulated them to applause from the crowd of dignitaries.
On D-Day, 20-year-old Terens was a U.S. Army Air Forces corporal in Yorkshire, England, working as a radio operator mechanic and communicating with fighter planes flying over France.
He traveled to Normandy about two weeks later to transport freed American prisoners of war back to England, and pick up newly captured Germans. He was horrified by the mangled bodies he saw in France and described war as “hell.”
The veteran said he wanted to get married in Normandy so he could invite all the soldiers who were killed there on D-Day to his wedding.
Terens said, “I’d like them to attend in spirit. And I want them to know that they’re not forgotten.”
Terens and Swerlin both grew up in New York City, and later both moved to Florida, but their love story didn’t start until 2021, when friends and family introduced them, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Both were widowed.
Their first date didn’t go well because Terens hadn’t dated anyone since his wife of 70 years died and felt shy. But the couple says they fell in love on their second date.
“Never have I felt this way about anyone,” Swerlin said. “We laugh all the time. At 96, to have this, I mean, come on.”
“I used to think Romeo and Juliet was the greatest love story. I think our love story is the greatest love story ever. The best is yet to come,” Terens said
The couple is now enjoying their honeymoon in Paris.