Love knows no end. Even when people reach old age, they can still find new love and fall in love with another person. That’s true for Janet Merryman from Maryland. She was widowed about twenty years ago when her first husband committed suicide. It was a tragedy that nearly destroyed her and her family, but she has since been able to move forward with her life and find a new beau to call her own.
Merryman’s love interest is actually a much younger man. He is twenty years her junior, but that doesn’t make her bat an eye. She has fallen in love with the man and wants to tie the knot as quickly as possible to enjoy as many years as possible as husband and wife. Now, Janet Merryman is working to find the right wedding dress for her special day and was captured on camera strutting around in a beautiful bandeau-style wedding dress with a mermaid silhouette that makes her look absolutely stunning.
Janet’s granddaughter Danielle snapped a video of her grandmother on the Chinese-created social media app TikTok. She captured the moment her 80-year-old grandmother started strutting her stuff in the wedding dress on the catwalk at the bridal shop.
The TikTok video went viral, and soon everyone wanted to talk to the 80-year-old widow who had found love late in life. She was invited to speak on Good Morning America and was asked if she could offer some advice to other women like her. She insisted that people should never give up on love no matter what age they are or what they have gone through in life.
“Take a chance, that’s all I can say. That’s what I’m doing,” Janet said. “I don’t have that many more years left, and I’m happy now.”
Janet first met her groom seven years ago. He was her neighbor, but he was married with children. But when his marriage came to an unceremonious end, Janet swooped in and began inviting him over for lunch. After a series of meetings over the course of several weeks and months, Janet and her groom fell in love with each other despite a twenty-year age gap.
Now, Janet is busy looking for the perfect wedding dress for her special day. She went dress shopping with her granddaughter Danielle who was more than happy to record some videos for TikTok to show the world how happy her grandmother was now that she had found a new beau to call her own.
While Janet and Danielle were at the bridal shop, everyone was watching the 80-year-old bride. They all wanted to see which dress she would pick for her special day.
“There are all these other brides who are trying on dresses who are stopping what they were doing to look at her,” the granddaughter said.
Life before her fiancé was not as happy. Now, Janet loves life.
“Everybody used to say to me, ‘Why don’t you smile more?’ I smile a lot more now.”