What's it like when 4,000 twins gather in one place?
Identical twin brothers Spencer Nick and Skyler Nick, both 32, live together in Chicago, work at the same company and wear matching outfits every day.
Their dream is to marry identical twin sisters.
“We feel like they would understand the unique relationship that Skyler and I have,” Spencer, 32, tells TODAY.com during an interview at an annual festival called Twins Days that attracts thousands of sibling pairs, trios and even quartets who know just how he feels.
The Nick twins have been coming to the three- day festival for 30 consecutive years; even COVID couldn’t keep them away.
When the celebration was remote in 2020, the Nicks made the five-hour drive to Twinsburg, Ohio, anyway. Spencer likens it to how monarch butterflies instinctively migrate to Mexico every November.
“We had to go back,” Spencer says.
Identical twins Misty and Windy Day grew up hearing about the world’s largest gathering of multiples, and attended their first Twins Days skeptically in 2013. They were curious to see what all the fuss was about.
“We were basically checking off an item on our bucket list,” Misty, 48, tells TODAY.
They've been back every year since then.
“The people that go have become our family,” Misty says. “It’s the highlight of our year.”
Twin Days offers a packed schedule of activities and parties that would rival a cruise ship, but what keeps people coming back is a feeling of belonging. It’s the one time of year where twins — who are often teased for looking alike, talking alike, and dressing alike — can converge in a place where everybody gets them.
Psychologist and twin expert Joan Friedman likens Twins Days to a gay pride celebration.
“It’s that same feeling of being with your people and feeling free to flaunt everything you love about being a twin,” the “Same But Different” author tells TODAY.com. “Society kind of makes fun of older twins that dress alike and live together, but at the festival all that stuff is celebrated and encouraged.”
For example, Misty Day completely understands the Nicks twins' desire to marry another set of identical twins.
“My fiancé knows that my sister will always come first,” Misty says. “I mean, we share 99% of our DNA.”
Festival darlings Jeremy, Josh, Brittany and Briana Salyers are living the dream: Identical twins who married identical twins in a joint ceremony in 2018 after meeting at Twins Days. The two couples, who are known to their more than 323,000 Instagram followers as the Salyers Twins, share a house with their 3-year-old sons Jett (born to Brittany and Josh) and Jax (born to Briana and Jeremy).
“It was something we all four wanted and when we got engaged, we all wanted it that way,” Brittany previously told TODAY.com of the unconventional living arrangement. Brittany noted that Josh and Jeremy understand that she and Briana need “a lot of together time.”
At this year’s Twins Days, Brittany and Briana were often spotted wandering the grounds and posing for photos without their husbands.
Many elderly twins at the festival are happily single. A Danish study found that twins are less likely to get married than non-twins.
“Twins grow up with their twin really being a parental surrogate, and they don’t make a connection to their parents the way that singletons do,” Friedman says. “So that twin is the most important person in their life, really, from the time they are born.”
“It’s their twin world, their twin bubble, and a lot of people don’t want to get out of their bubble,” Friedman continues. “They feel like, ‘I’m good. I have my soulmate, and they’ll never abandon me.’”
This year, organizers say 2,164 sets of multiples, ranging in age from 6 weeks to 93 years, registered for the festival in Twinsburg.
There is always a theme. For 2024, organizers chose “Twindy 500: Off Two the Races,” and participants came dressed accordingly (think checkered flag motifs and jumpsuits).
Throughout the weekend, twins and higher-order multiples marched in the “Double Take” parade, performed in a twin talent show, played “Twingo” and competed in look-alike contests.
In the beer garden area, a pickup scene thrived. Even twins who are single were never alone: They mixed and mingled as pairs, always by their sibling's side as they made new friends and possible romantic connections.
By the food trucks, a pair of sisters simultaneously reached for the other's hand as they were engulfed in a huge crowd. Moments later, two teenage girls exclaimed in unison, “I have to pee!”
Neither said “jinx!” because when you’re a twin, this stuff happens all the time.
“Twins create their own language as soon as they start talking,” Misty Day says. “A bunch of us were discussing how when we first started school, we were all in speech therapy because of it.”
At the Twinsburg festival, twins of all races, ethnicities, ages, and backgrounds bond over shared experiences.
“You automatically have this very innate connection with other twins,” Misty says. “You’re all part of a special club."
During a tribute to beloved festival emcee Dan Fazio, who was killed in a car accident in 2023, the crowd sings Fazio’s favorite song, “Let it Be,” by The Beatles. The Nick twins have tears in their eyes as they pass out memorial bracelets.
Misty recalls a pair of older truck drivers who would perform a tap dance routine each year. In 2021, there was just one man standing on the stage. His twin had died of a heart attack.
“He did the routine himself,” Misty says. “I was not just crying — I was sobbing. Everybody was. I whispered to my sister, ‘I have to get out of here.’ I mean, I couldn’t breathe. When you’re a twin, your biggest fear is losing your twin.”
At the festival, “We get to be completely ourselves,” identical twin Jill Gentry, 31, tells TODAY.com. “That’s the best part. That’s what keeps people coming back.”
A few twins joked that the biggest draw was not having to deal with strangers asking, “Can you read each other’s minds?” and “Do you have the same personality?”
When Jill Gentry, an active officer in the Navy, moved to Spain after college, she had an existential crisis. She says it was the first time she had been away from her twin, JoJo, who was pursuing a journalism career.
“I had to figure out how to be an individual,” Jill says. “I was like, am I not interesting on my own? People don’t look at me on the street. I don’t get attention anymore. And that was a whole thing that I had to go through.”
If Jill shared that story at Twins Days, she would be met with knowing nods and advice on how to cope with being separated from a twin.
The feeling of Twins Days lasts long past the annual August weekend.
Helen and Ruth Morton, 11-year-old twins, just returned home to Kentucky from Twins Days with new pen pals and two second-place trophies in a look-alike contest. They say they are counting down the days until they can go back.
“Their dad has always told them, ‘Twins are special.’ When they were little, he would say, ‘Twins are...’ and they would say, ‘special!’ Helen and Ruth’s mom, Elizabeth Morton, tells TODAY.com. “Now they understand what he means.”
More "twinspiration" stories:
<a href="https://www.today.com/parents/family/twins-reunite-baby-monitor-rcna165174" target="_blank">Twins reunite on baby monitor after a day apart</a>
<a href="https://www.today.com/parents/babies/parents-switched-identical-twins-at-birth-rcna147199" target="_blank">Parents say they might have switched identical twins at birth</a>
<a href="https://www.today.com/parents/family/identical-twins-married-identical-twins-babies-are-siblings-rcna143840" target="_blank">We're identical twins who married identical twins</a>
<a href="https://www.today.com/parents/moms/twin-babies-first-meeting-rcna155407" target="_blank">Twin babies meet each other for the first time</a>
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
