When Abby Hensel walked down the aisle on November 13, 2021, at the Jerome Event Center in Delano, Minnesota, Brittany Hensel was beside her in every literal sense, yet the marriage certificate issued by Ramsey County contains no signature or listing for Brittany as a witness. TMZ obtained and reported the document in early April 2024, confirming that the only names recorded as witnesses were the twins’ other sister Morgan Hensel and Cosmo Naut. Reverend Sid A. Veenstra performed the ceremony, and Abby subsequently adopted the surname Bowling. The sisters were born on March 7, 1990, in Carver County, Minnesota, to parents Patty and Mike Hensel. Doctors advised against separation surgery because the chance that both would survive was low; the parents declined the operation.

The twins are dicephalic parapagus, each possessing a separate head, heart, lungs, spine, and stomach while sharing a pelvis, reproductive organs, bladder, and bloodstream. Abby controls the right side of their body and Brittany the left. They first appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1996 at age six, later starred in documentaries, and had a short-lived TLC series in 2012. After graduating from Bethel University, they became elementary school teachers in Minnesota. Under Minnesota Statutes section 517.10, a marriage certificate must include the signatures of at least two witnesses who are at least sixteen years old and present at the solemnization. Nothing in the statute requires every person physically present to sign, and the couple selected Morgan and Cosmo Naut to fulfill the legal requirement.

The choice avoided any potential ambiguity about whether Brittany, as a separate legal person who is not herself marrying Josh, needed to be treated as a formal witness. News of the 2021 wedding only became widely known in March 2024 when Today reported the public records. The twins posted a brief response acknowledging the sudden attention. Josh Bowling, born March 29, 1989, previously served as an Army health specialist and later worked as a nurse; he has one confirmed daughter, Isabella, from his earlier marriage to Annica Rose Bowling. After the certificate details circulated, public discussion focused on the logistics of the marriage given the twins’ condition. The family has continued to prioritize privacy, occasionally sharing selected wedding images but offering no extensive interviews. Later 2025 pH๏τographs of the twins carrying a newborn prompted further online speculation, which Bowling addressed by identifying certain social media accounts as fraudulent and declining to confirm any new child. The decision not to list Brittany as a witness therefore reflects both the minimum legal requirements of Minnesota marriage law and the family’s consistent preference for defining the boundaries of Abby’s individual marriage without additional formal involvement of her twin.

Abby and Brittany have continued teaching fifth grade in the state. In subsequent years they shared a limited number of wedding-day images showing them in a white gown with Bowling. By August and September 2025, pH๏τographs of the twins with a newborn baby in Arden Hills and near their school circulated widely. Josh Bowling later told media that accounts appearing to confirm a baby on TikTok were not operated by the family and that no official statement had been made. The certificate’s witness list therefore stands as the clearest official record of who was formally recognized as present for the legal act of marriage, separate from the physical reality that Brittany was necessarily in the room.