Every Sunday morning I
spend a long time looking over the New York Times wedding pages. Don't
get me wrong: I'm not gushing over the luxurious wedding gowns with the
trailing trains and I'm not dripping tears of joy into my coffee for all
those people finding their happily ever after. Oh, no, no, no. I'm
checking to see how many of the newlyweds look like dead ringers for the love
of their life. A freaky number of these couples look like fraternal twins
separated at birth. Add in the weddings with two grooms and you've got a
lot of couples who could be identical twins separated at birth.
On any given Sunday, half
the folks in the Vows section look like they scanned the crowd at the local
bar, coffee shop, or grocery and struck up a relationship with whoever looked
most like themselves. If Joe has a pointy nose, nine times out of ten so
does his new bride, Joanne. If Susanne has high cheekbones, chances are
the guy standing next to her does, too.
Maybe it's just that a lot
of couples pose like they're in a police line-up in the facing-front phase.
With those noses, lips and eyes all lined up I can't help but notice that
both halves of the couple have unibrows and full lips, or widow's peaks and
perky noses. Or maybe the couples that look less alike also have more
imaginative photographers; ones who ask the lovebirds to cock their heads and
look sideways at the camera.
To be fair, we are
attracted to the familiar, aren't we? I've noticed that a lot of people
marry someone with a first name already attached to someone in the family.
In my family, we have a hell of a lot of Cathys. In other families
it's Michelle, Carlos, Hunter, or Minh. My theory is, if you happen to be at a
party and you meet someone with the same first name as your sister/cousin/aunt,
you're bound to be a bit more relaxed and warm, and you have an icebreaker to start
the conversation rolling. "Your name is Tulip?! My sister's name is
Tulip!! No way!"
Yesterday, though, there was one couple that did
touch my sentimental side. Ada Bryant, age 97, and Robert Haire, 86,
were married Saturday. The two, both widowed, have been dating about a
year. Now that they're married, they'll share an apartment at the residential
retirement center where they now have separate units. The photo to
accompany their announcement? They're facing each other, looking into
each other’s eyes with such huge smiles it's impossible to tell how much or how
little they look alike, just that they're very, very happy.
