On This Day In 1863: Two Short People Got Married For All To See

On This Day in 1863, Lavinia Warren married Charles Stratton… Eh, who married who? Well aren’t we stupid. Because this wasn’t just any ordinary ceremony solidifying the love of two no names for eternity, nah, this was a wedding in which over 10,000 people flocked to New York City just to attend, which in 1863 was no small feat. Lavinia Warren and Charles Stratton were as famous and rich as you could be in America in 1863, and they were far from ordinary.

So who the hell was this power couple of the 19th century? They were P.T. Barnum’s star performers in his world famous traveling circus. Back in a time where physical oddities and disabilities were thought to be “curiosities,” Lavinia and Charles cashed in on the country’s curiosity with anybody different from themselves. While small in stature, the duo combined for quite the large spectacle as they traveled across the country as part of Barnum’s circus, and in particular, his ‘freak shows’, politically correct, I know. The couple became so large in fact, that their marriage made the cover of Harper’s Weekly, was written about in The New York Times and Saturday Evening Post, and came with a $75 entrance fee for the 2,000 people lucky enough to attend the reception dinner. 75 bucks back then is roughly $1,550 today. WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?! That’s quite the price for such a “short” occasion. Wink wink. 

The couple lived happily married for two decades and continued to be the center piece for P.T. Barnum’s circus before Charles died unexpectedly from a stroke in 1883. Although long gone, the success of Lavinia Warren and Charles Stratton serves as a lesson to us all. Size doesn’t matter, especially when you can charge people the equivalent of $1,550 just to attend your fucking wedding reception. I mean seriously. That’s over three million dollars in today’s money. THREE MILLION. 

Talk about having a Napoleon complex.