Back when they were single, identical twins sisters Venessa and Kerissa Sealby never dreamed they would marry identical twin brothers. Then they met Lucas and Jacob Sealby.
During a March 29 appearance on TODAY, Lucas recalled his and Jacob's life-changing first date with Venessa and Kerissa in 2020.
"I said, 'Gee, I think I'm going to marry her. And (Jacob) said the same thing," Lucas told Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie. "And we kind of got all pumped up."
“We didn’t have any interest in dating twins,” Venessa, 28, tells TODAY.com. “The idea kind of creeped us out, like no, that’s weird. And physically we had completely different types.”
Venessa was working as a personal trainer, when a client told her about a pair of identical twin brothers named Lucas and Jacob. Like Venessa and Kerissa, they were sporty.
“She was like, ‘You and Kerissa ran track at University of Oregon, they ran track at Washington State, and I think you’d be a perfect match,” Venessa recalls.
The client had a feeling Venessa would gravitate toward Lucas, the more extroverted sibling.
“I told her, ‘You can give him my number, but I’m not going to reach out to him,’” Venessa says. "And so that's what she did."
Hours later, Venessa received a text from Lucas inviting her and Kerissa over to his and Jacob’s apartment in Medford, Oregon.
Venessa teases that Lucas was "definitely taller and more handsome than this Facebook picture!"
Just as Venessa’s client predicted, she gravitated towards Lucas, while Kerissa felt a connection with Jacob.
Kerissa describes Jacob as a “total goofball,” but notes that he’s shy around new people. According to Venessa, it makes sense that she was drawn to Lucas.
“We’re both the outgoing twin,” she explains. “In high school, I spoke for Kerissa and he spoke for Jacob.”
After that first hangout, Venessa knew she had found “the one.”
“As soon as we got in the car, I looked at Kerissa and said, ‘I’m calling mom, because I’m marrying that man,’” Venessa says.
Kerissa came to the same conclusion a few days later.
“Jacob and had a one-on-one date and I was like, “OK. This is actually happening,” Kerissa says. “The whole thing seemed so crazy.”
Venessa and Lucas tied the knot in October 2022, while Kerissa and Jacob exchanged wedding vows in June 2023.
When Venessa and Kerissa are asked if they considered a double wedding, the sisters respond with a resounding no!
A double life
In April 2022, the Sealbys moved into neighboring houses in Oregon, where they spend their evenings playing card games. They also love to go bowling.
“We live two steps away from each other,” Kerissa says. “We’re constantly running back and forth to each others houses. I’m at Venessa’s probably 10 times a day.”
During their March 29 appearance on TODAY, Lucas shared an "embarrassing" story about a time he got Venessa and Kerissa mixed up.
"I thought my wife was looking really good in the kitchen after the gym, so I gave her a light tap on the behind," he said. "And it turned out it was not her!"
"I was like, 'What are you doing!?' Kerissa laughed.
Venessa and Lucas are parents of 5-month-old daughter, Adrian, while Kerissa and Jacob share Sophie, 19 months.
Sophie and Adrian are cousins, but also genetic siblings known as quaternary twins. Quaternary twins occur when one set of identical twins has children with another set of identical twins.
“They share DNA in the same way siblings share DNA,” Dr. John Pappas, director of pediatric clinic genetics at Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital at NYU Langone, tells TODAY.com.
Pappas adds that quaternary twins are “extremely rare.
“Even though they have different parents, they’re genetically full siblings,” says Dr. Robert Green, a medical geneticist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
Venessa and Kerissa hope to be pregnant at the same time when they go for No. 2.
“We’ve been talking about it. Jacob and I are close to being ready," Kerissa says. “It would be so fun to have kids the same age and at the same school.”
The Sealbys are talking about attending the annual Twins Days Festival in August. The event in Twinsburg, Ohio, is the largest annual gathering of twins and multiples in the world.
Kerissa says that identical twins “just get each other.” And there's comfort in that.
“Before we met Lucas and Jacob, guys didn’t understand why we needed to spend so much time together. They’d get upset if I was like, ‘I want to go to dinner with Venessa, just her and me,’” Kerissa explains. “Jacob’s past girlfriends would get mad at him for always wanting to be with Lucas.”
But Kerissa never gets mad.
“Jacob will get home from work, grab our daughter and go, ‘Want to go see your cousin?’” she says, with a laugh. “He just wants to hang out with his brother.”
“I’m the same way,” she says. “That's what we do naturally.”