After getting engaged to the men of their dreams, twin sisters Sonia Dixon and Adrienne Campbell found themselves planning weddings at the same time.
But before long, they decided it made more sense to just do a joint celebration to save money and so their family and friends only had to travel once.
In a true testament to their closeness and strong bond, the two couples then flew off on a joint honeymoon.
The 62-year-old sisters, who now have children of their own, also worked together in an VIP airport lounge and enjoyed people getting them muddled up - including a former Prime Minister.
But after both splitting from their husbands, Sonia and Ade have decided to move to the same housing estate in Crowthorne, Berkshire so they can spend even more time together.
Sonia said: “It just seemed natural to have our weddings together. Weddings are expensive and we both thought it was more practical.
“It was probably good for our family and friends too, only having to attend one event. We just had the one congregation. I stood up with my partner first and recited vows, then Ade did the same.
“We’re both now separated from our husbands and we work at the airport together.”
Sonia, mum to aircraft dispatcher Chelsey, 32, and Kerri, 29, a barber, was first to move into the L&G Homes development in May 2019, followed by Ade - mum to Scott, 28, who works in airfield operations - in August 2020.
Sonia said: “We’ve always been close. We even shared a room up until we were about nine or 10. It was around that time that our family moved from Aberdeen to Burnley.
“When I was 17, I joined the military and Ade followed me 18 months later. We weren’t posted together, so it was our first real time apart, I was in Northern Ireland and she was in Germany.”
Inseparable, the two sisters tied the knot with their respective partners in a double wedding at Bracknell Register Office in September 1982, before jetting off on a joint honeymoon to Miami, Florida, USA.
Sonia became a member of staff at Heathrow Airport in 1980 and five years later, Ade joined.
Sonia said: “A lot of the time we do back-to-back shifts, so we’ll see each other during the shift changes, but every so often we get to work together.
“A lot of the regulars we have travelling through don’t realise that there are two of us - it’s quite funny.
“A former prime minister used to fly through a lot and we served him for years before he noticed we were twins.”
Even when people do discover there are two of them, the identical twins say that it is often difficult to tell them apart.
“I always used to say Ade had bigger boobs and I had bigger earrings,” Sonia joked. “But people always get us mixed up.
"When I see strangers waving at me in the street I just wave back, because they’re probably someone who knows Ade.”
Six months ago, the pair took another step to be closer to each other when Ade moved into Sonia’s housing development, living a five-minute walk away from her sister.
Ade said: “I'd gone through the process with Sonia when she bought her house.
"She looked at a few developments and was living with me at the time, while house hunting.
"She stayed with me for eight months before she found the development we both ended up choosing.
“Sonia lives in phase one and I’m in phase two, but we’re only a stone’s throw away from each other. I don’t think it takes even five minutes for me to get to her house.”
Sonia and Ade’s father, Henry Taylor, was also an identical twin and, with both brothers then fathering sets of twins, it is definitely a family trait.
“My dad was just as close to his brother as I am to Ade,” Sonia said. “In fact, my dad’s last word before he died was his twin’s name. They were really close.”
Henry passed away aged 74 in July 2007, and his twin brother, Ronnie, died just six months later.
Ade said: “Sonia and I have been close since day one. Until Sonia joined the army we were never apart.
"When she went I was bereft. It was like part of me was missing. It was the first time we’d experienced not being together. It took a lot of adjusting to.
“Naturally, I followed her about 18 months later. We didn’t serve together, but it felt natural to be in the same field. We just gravitate to one another.”
The sisters now both work meeting and greeting guests at Heathrow Airport’s VIP lounge and are settling in happily as neighbours in their new housing development.
Ade concluded: “There’s a real community feel to the development and Crowthorne as a whole, so it really suits us.
“Both Sonia and I are very happy there and I love being so close to her.
“We’ve been joined at the hip from day one and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
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