Amid the somber commemorations in France, there was joy, too, and a wedding as a 100-year-old U.S. veteran returned to Normandy to marry his 96-year-old bride.
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. 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,” .
“Love is not only for the young. We still get butterflies,” Swerlin added. “I didn’t know what love really was until I met him.
” “We get a little action also,” she told a crowd gathered for the event. 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 cro.
