Days of Double Takes: How the world’s largest festival for twins, triplets and ‘multiples’ takes over Twinsburg, Ohio each summer – as thousands celebrate everything from ‘twinness’ and talent … to (double) wedding bells
- The Twins Days festival takes place every August in Twinsburg, Ohio, a town with population circa 20,000 that’s a 20-minute drive from Cleveland
- The weekend features a Double Take themed twin parade, a 5k and volleyball tournament, contests, a talent show, fireworks and other events, with many siblings attending year after year
- Researchers flock to the town for twin studies and urge attendees to participate in tests and questionnaires
- This year’s festivities in Twinsburg included a double wedding between identical sisters Brittany and Briana Deane and brothers Jeremy and Josh Salyers
- The couples met last year at the festival, became engaged in February and were married – by identical ministers – in side-by-side ceremonies over the weekend
- Other attendees included brothers from Germany and the weekend’s celebrities – Ronnie and Donnie Galyon, 66, a pair of brothers from Ohio who are the world’s oldest living conjoined twins
There isn’t much to see in Twinsburg, Ohio that would make visitors do a double take. There’s a high school and a McDonald’s, a gas station and a few stores, but it’s really just an average Midwestern town, a Cleveland suburb that’s home to 20,000 people.
Until the first weekend in August, that is. That’s when locals and visitors alike start seeing double – and triple, and quadruple, and even sextuple. Aptly named Twinsburg bills itself as host to the largest festival of twins and other multiples in the world, giving attendees a forum to showcase their talent, socialize with others … and even meet and marry their future spouses.
That’s exactly what happened this weekend in Twinsburg, where identical sisters Brittany and Briana Deane married identical brothers Jeremy and Josh Salyers – one year after the couples met at the same festival.
The four married side by side on Saturday in a ceremony themed Twice Upon A Time – but it was far from the only theme or excitement that featured in Twinsburg over Twins Days weekend.
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The Twins Days festival, which takes place annually on the first weekend of August in Twinsburg, Ohio, bills itself as the largest gathering of twins, triplets and other multiples in the world
The weekend features the annual Double Take parade; the theme this year was ‘Two-Player Mode,’ urging participants to dress up as their favorite video or other games. Here, twins Jaydyn and Jaudyn Draughon, from North Carolina, pay homage to Connect Four
German brothers Tim and Tom Meyer, dressed in Smurf costumes, pose with fellow attendees Ryan and Austin Metcalfe, from Ontario, Canada
Brittany and Briana Deane, of Virginia, married Josh and Jeremy Salyers, of Tennessee, during a weekend ceremony in Twinsburg, Ohio – one year after the couples met for the first time at the annual Twins Days festival; the foursome plans to move into the same house and raise their children together
Saturday morning saw the annual Twins Days Double Take Festival; the theme this year was ‘Two-Player Mode,’ and participants were urged to dress up as their favorite video or arcade game character or ‘draw inspiration from classic card games, board games, role-playing games or video game themed movies.’
Participants assembled at the town circle and marched 1.5 miles down to the school, where the main festival activities were held in tents. Those in the parade got creative despite the summer heat, with adult twins dressing up as everything from Pokemon characters to Mario and Luigi to Scrabble boards and cards from Guess Who?
There were younger twins on an Angry Birds float and a pair dressed as the board game Mouse Trap, and local citizens, relatives and visiting twins alike braved the August heat and sun to line the route, enjoying the annual tradition.
The day featured a twins talent contest, as well, with newer acts and regulars who’d appeared for years on the stage of the festival, which first launched in Twinsburg in 1976. Irish step dancers, modern dancers, singers and other acts took the stage to applause from the 500 people assembled, while live bands played at another tent, too.
There’s a map on which to pin your hometown, and this year, as usual, people traveled from all over the country and the world to Twinsburg. So did researchers; the event offers a unique opportunity for twin studies, and different tents tried to entice multiples to participate in a range of tests and questionnaires.
The veritable celebrities of the weekend, however, were Ohio brothers Ronnie and Donnie Galyon, the oldest living conjoined twins at the world and the age of 66. They were dressed as Captain America and Batman and could barely keep up with the demand of other attendees who were clamoring to meet them.
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Ronnie and Donnie Galyon, 66, are the world’s oldest conjoined twins; the brothers also live in Ohio and other attendees clamored to say hello throughout the weekend
Sisters Stephanie Pointer and Rhondalyn Burgett had also been born conjoined but were later separated; they now live in different states but happily traveled to Twinsburg to celebrate
Olivia, Sage, Simone and Brielle Mullins attended the festival with their parents; the two sets of twins are 12 and 13, and the four Ohio sisters performed a dance together in the talent show, as well
A set of triplets chose to dress up as butterflies for the annual Double Take parade, which is held on the Saturday morning
In a collaborative effort, several sets of twins who dress as Scrabble line up in the significant heat during the weekend, which had participants sheltering in shade and pitched tents
Attendees travel from around the country and the world and are encouraged to record their hometowns on a large global map; the record year for Twins Days numbers was 1995, when 2,795 sets of twins and multiples registered for the Ohio event
Saturday evening featured fireworks, while many regulars retired to a hotel in nearby Aurora – area hotels often start booking out a year in advance – to party into the wee hours.
Again braving the 98degree heat, on Sunday many attendees participated in a 5k run/walk and a volleyball game, and contests throughout the weekend judged least and most lookalike twins in different age categories.
Organizers were hoping to beat last year’s number of 1905 registered twins and multiples; the record year was 1995, with 2,795 registered sets.
Saturday’s twin wedding didn’t mark the first time twins married while the event was being held; 25 years ago, for example, Doug and Phil Malm married Jill and Jena Lassen at the festival. The couples had met at Twins Days in 1991 and the men proposed the following year, also in Twinsburg – where they married in 1993.
The Malms live together under one roof in Moscow, Idaho, where they have raised their children; Doug and Jill has a 20-year-old daughter and Jena and Phil have a son who’s a year younger.
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Joshua and Matthew Barry pose in Twinsburg; the parade winds through the town to the local school, whose grounds host performances and other events as well as various tents – such as those set up by researchers taking advantage of so many twins in one place for different twin studies
Brothers Joel and Sam Muscato put their own spin on the theme with Whack-a-Mole costumes in the August sunshine
Brothers Garrett and Michael Barker pose during the event, which often draws twins back year after year, sometimes for decades; Twins Days first began in 1976 and has grown ever since
The Saturday talent show featured a range of performances from twins, from singing and playing instruments to modern dance routines and twin Irish step dancers, pictured
The weekend draws not only twins, multiples and their families but also Twinsburg locals, as most of the area turns out to watch the parade go by and join the festivities
While the more recent twin wedding couples got engaged in the sisters’ native Virginia and not Twinsburg, they’ve been enthusiastic about pursuing a lifestyle similar to the Malms and Lassens who got married 25 years beforehand – sharing a single home with their husbands and raising children in one big happy family.
The relationship, already, has ‘really been a fairytale come true,’ Briana Deane told People. ‘Marrying twins is something that’s very important to us.
‘Even when we were little girls I can remember being in kindergarten, knowing that that is what we saw for ourselves.’
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The brothers, too, had dreamed of the day they’d meet the right pair of girls – and it was the Deanes who spotted the Tennessee men while sitting on the bleachers at the festival last year.
‘You know when you know,’ Jeremy Slayers said. ‘We’ve always known our whole life if we were going to get married that it was going to be twins.’
The couples were married by identical twin ministers – and had been looking for identical twin DJs, too – in a ceremony that was filmed for TLC, which will air the show next year.
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Always capitalizing upon twin humor, the Twins Days festival sets up a ‘mirror’, where sisters and brothers can pose for funny photos of themselves
This pair of sisters dressed as props from the popular board game Mouse Trap; the parade theme changes every year and creativity is encouraged
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