92-Year-Old Bachelor Marries Woman He Met Over 60 Years Ago

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.”