‘I married my brother’: Pastor’s viral post leaves internet baffled, gets 10M views

A New York pastor has made international news with a poorly-worded social media post about marrying his brother.

A New York pastor has made international news with a poorly-worded social media post about marrying his brother. Peter Deberny, a Lutheran minister in Long Island, shared a photograph on X from a wedding ceremony. The picture shows a bride and groom holding hands during their wedding ceremony, but it was the accompanying caption that drew eyeballs.

A pastor's post about marrying his brother left millions confused. (X/@pastordeberny)

“Yesterday I married my brother,” Peter Deberny captioned the photograph.

Decoding the post

The post quickly went viral, racking up more than 10 million views as confused users tried to make sense of the statement. Many initially thought the pastor was announcing a same-sex marriage with his sibling — until they realised what he actually meant.

As it turns out, Pastor Deberny didn’t marry his brother — he officiated his brother’s wedding. The caption, though technically correct from his point of view, was easily misinterpreted.

Social media amused

Once the mix-up was cleared up, users flooded the comments with jokes and playful reactions, with one writing, “You almost had us in the first half”.

“My dad married my brothers and my sister but I at least got to marry my cousin,” another joked.

“A thousand other sentences you could’ve gone with,” said one viewer.

It turns out that Pastor Deberny was well aware of what he was doing, and the wording was intentional.

When an X user wrote “I presided over the marriage of my brother <-- This would have been much more precise”, he pastor replied, “Yes, but not as funny”.