The 102-year-old bride held her new husband’s hand. The groom, 100, tenderly touched his head to hers.
Marjorie Fiterman and Bernie Littman got married on May 19 in Philadelphia, nine years after they met at a party in their retirement community. They had their first date later that same day and have been together since.
With a combined age of 202, their families believe they’re now the oldest living married couple and have contacted Guinness World Records to make it official.
‘I don’t want to live without you’
The pair had never talked about marriage until recently when Fiterman broke her leg from a fall, which seemed to shake Littman, his granddaughter says.
“There was kind of that moment of ‘I don’t want to live without you,’ and so it was just a ‘Why don’t we get married?’ sort of thing,” Sarah Sicherman, 39, tells TODAY.com.
“It was kind of spur of the moment. At first, we thought that it was a joke, but then they just continued to go through with it and took all the necessary steps.”
Their families thought they’d opt for an informal ceremony without making it an official legal union, but the centenarians took it very seriously, “wanted to go fully in” and applied for a marriage license, Sicherman notes.
When her grandfather found out Allegheny County in Pennsylvania could issue a marriage license in the fastest time, he went that route and took care of all the paperwork on his own, she adds.
The couple had to get new photo identification cards because both had expired licenses — they haven’t driven since before the pandemic. When a family member took Fiterman to the DMV to get her ID card, the crowd of 50 people waiting in line graciously let her go to the front of the queue when they heard her story, Sicherman says.
Finding love again
About 10 family members attended the traditional Jewish wedding. There were cheers when Littman, who uses a wheelchair, was able to stand and break the glass with his foot as is customary at the end of the ceremony.
“It isn’t often that I am asked to preside at the wedding of a bride and groom who have each lived for more than a century (actually, this is the only time it has ever happened),” Rabbi Adam Wohlberg wrote about the experience online.
“The fact that they found love again is heartwarming.”
This is the second marriage for both. Littman was married to his first wife for 65 years until she died in 2012. Fiterman also had a long marriage to her first husband until he passed away.
“We’re just so happy that he’s found someone that he loves spending time with,” Sicherman says.
“It’s adorable that they have decided to do this … and fun for us as the family to be able to share this with everybody — to have this kind of joyous news during a time when things are just really crazy in the world.”
The couple, through their family, declined to be interviewed.
Healthy habits for longevity
The centenarians don’t have any major health issues — Fiterman has recovered well after breaking her leg and is walking again after surgery, Sicherman notes. Both are mentally sharp and there’s no dementia or any cancer in their health histories, she adds.
“Keeping his mind sharp has definitely been very helpful. He is an engineer, so he’s always been a tinkerer and wanting to kind of figure out situations,” Sicherman says of her grandfather.
“Marjorie is also very sophisticated and educated. She was a teacher and her husband was in the military, so she was able to travel a lot through that. She lived three years in Japan.”
Littman was always active and played tennis into his 80s. His diet was “very run-of-the-mill,” his granddaughter notes, adding that he liked Scotch and still takes little sips of it for big occasions. Light to moderate drinking may improve longevity, some studies suggest.
Fiterman liked to drink buttermilk, which is fermented and a good source of probiotics — beneficial bacteria that may boost immunity, among other important functions.
The newlyweds are both optimists, a trait linked to longevity.
Fiterman didn’t have kids so she’s kind of adopted Littman’s two children, four grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren, Sicherman adds.
At 102, she appears to tie the world record for the oldest bride. The oldest groom was a Wisconsin man who married at 103.
The family is submitting paperwork to Guinness World Records to show Fiterman and Littman are the oldest living married couple by aggregate age. The couple, meanwhile, have little sense of the attention their story is getting.
“They’re just happy enjoying their time together,” Sicherman says.
