It might have been the longest wait but today 100-year-old American World War II veteran Harold Terens married his 96-year-old fiancée in Normandy, just days after being honoured on the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in northwestern France.
To the sounds of Ave Maria and bagpipes, Mr Terens and his sweetheart Jeanne Swerlin said “I do” in the town of Carentan-les-Marais at a ceremony attended by dozens of guests, some wearing military uniforms.
“I waited 96 years to find the right man and now I have a wedding like only a queen and king can have,” Ms Swerlin said before the ceremony.
“I feel young again,” Mr Terens said. “It’s the best time of my entire life.”
Mr Terens, who wore a light blue suit, entered the local wedding hall to applause from family and friends.
Dressed in satin pink, Ms Swerlin made her entrance to the sound of Whitney Houston’s I will always love you. The bride and groom embraced, swaying with emotion.
“Oui!” Ms Swerlin said in French when asked by the mayor, Jean-Pierre Lhonneur, if she wished to take Mr Terens to be her husband.
Mr Terens and Ms Swerlin, who live in Florida in the US, tied the knot after commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the 6 June 1944 Normandy landings, with US President Joe Biden, Britain’s King Charles III, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and French President Emmanuel Macron in attendance.
“My religion is love,” Mr Terens said. He said he always taught his family to “just love”.
His son Bill Terens said they did not know “if he’d be alive or well enough to travel” to France for the anniversary of the D-Day landings as he regularly did in the past. But Mr Terens said he felt good.
“I want to marry Jeannie,” he also said, according to his son.
“So we all thought it was a little crazy, but we supported him again, and here we are. He has always been a dreamer, he dreams of big things, and sometimes he gets them.”
Philip Taubman, Ms Swerlin’s son-in-law, praised the “once-in-a-lifetime” celebration.
“It proves what life is all about,” he said. “Harold was a hero and he made a safer democracy of all the world and this is just the final celebration of his particular life.”
Mr Terens was awarded the French Legion of Honour by Mr Macron in 2019.
“We are very honoured that Mr Terens has chosen to marry here, in Carentan, where in June 1944 the Allied troops landed on the beaches of Utah and Omaha,” the mayor said.
“We’ll be offering him champagne, of course, but also a gift to thank him for taking part in the liberation of France.”
During the war Mr Terens also part in a secret mission that took him to Soviet Ukraine via Casablanca, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Cairo, Baghdad and Tehran.
After the war Ms Terens married his first wife, Thelma, with whom he spent 70 years and raised three children until her death in 2018.
In 2021, a friend introduced him to Ms Swerlin, who had also been widowed, and the two have been inseparable ever since.