A longtime bachelor married for the first time at 92 to a widowed woman he met 64 years ago.
The couple, Joe Potenzano, 92, and Mary Elkind, 84, spoke to People exclusively about their first meeting at his sister’s wedding in 1959. He was a groomsman and she was a bridesmaid.
“It wasn’t meant for us back then, but it is now and it’s perfect,” Elkind said.
Following the wedding, the pair continued to see one another before Potenzano went off to college, and Elkind, who was a dancer, worked at a ballet company and Radio City Music Hall in New York City before meeting her late husband.
“In fact, Joe was at my wedding and we’ve always been very close through family functions over the years,” Elkind explained. “How we got back together was at the baby’s christening and we were sitting there and Joe decided to ask me if I’d like to go for coffee or lunch with him one day.”
Potenzano opened up about his struggle with loneliness as he got older.
“I don’t wish loneliness on anybody. It affects us all. Some of us remain silent, but I thought I don’t intend to remain silent when I know my life is dribbling away from me in my late years,” he shared.
He said he thought about Elkin many times throughout the years and had the desire to call her and ask her out, as they were both alone. However, he waited nine years after her husband’s death to make it happen, which he ultimately regretted.
“All my friends can tell you, I was stupid,” Potenzano recalled. “I was the first one to say ‘I love you’ and I should have said it sooner.”
He had been in only one relationship in the 1960s with a flight attendant he met in New York. That relationship ended after he discovered she had a boyfriend back home. As a result, Potenzano believed marriage wasn’t in the cards for him.
“That knocked me off mentally. And I just thought in my heart and my mind, marriage was not meant to be,” he said.
He added, “No matter what I do, it’s always going to be a failure. And I didn’t want to pursue it anymore.”
However, when he met Elkin, he knew she was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
The couple got married on Oct. 15 in New Jersey with about 90 people in attendance.
“Joe’s sister was my maid of honor, and I was her maid of honor at her wedding. The church ceremony was beautiful,” Elkin shared.
She continued, “We had planned just a small wedding, but everybody said we have to have a celebration so we did it up big.”
During the interview, Potenzano revealed what life is like with his new bride.
“She does things I normally wouldn’t do in the house and she teaches me things every day,” he said. “Like I should have all the buttons on my shirts and don’t mix the dark colors with the whites when you do laundry.”
When describing her marriage to Potenzano, Elkin said, “I’ve always loved him as a person, so I’m very happy,” she says. “I couldn’t have picked a better man.”
