A married couple with a 2ft height difference get mistaken for father and daughter. Nanette Kilmer, is 4ft 3, while her husband Richard is 6ft 2. Despite being 37-years-old, it’s not uncommon for people to assume Nanette is Richard’s daughter. The couple met through a dating website – when Rich was based out of Afghanistan for work and Nanette lived in the Philippines, where she was born. After speaking on the phone regularly, the couple took it to the next step meeting in person at the airport. And although Richard knew Nanette was petite he didn’t realise the extent of the height difference until that moment. The couple have also had to contend with assumptions about Nanette being a mail order bride – even though after marrying the couple settling in the Philippines for a few years. Richard and Nanette now live in upstate New York and have one daughter who simply knows her dad is tall and her mum is small.
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00:00 COMM: This is Nanette.
00:01 NANETTE KURIANI: I guess I'm attracted to tall guys.
00:04 COMM: She fell in love with Rich.
00:07 RICH KURIANI: I've dated tall women, I've dated short women, no one as short as Nanette.
00:12 COMM: With nearly a two-foot difference in height, they have gotten used to the stairs.
00:16 RICH KURIANI: We've had people take pictures, yell across the street. We've had people
00:21 think that our daughter and my wife were sisters.
00:29 NANETTE KURIANI: You're stuck.
00:30 RICH KURIANI: Well, we complement each other in many different ways and it's way beyond
00:35 our height difference.
00:36 NANETTE KURIANI: It is.
00:37 RICH KURIANI: I'm more hands-on and mechanical and...
00:40 NANETTE KURIANI: I'm more anal.
00:41 RICH KURIANI: Dimensional. No, don't say that.
00:43 NANETTE KURIANI: What?
00:44 RICH KURIANI: It just doesn't sound good.
00:46 RICH KURIANI: Nanette's originally from the Philippines but we live here in New York.
00:50 I am six-foot-two and a quarter.
00:54 NANETTE KURIANI: And I am what?
00:56 RICH KURIANI: Four-foot-three and three-quarters.
00:59 NANETTE KURIANI: Yes. The thing that's most challenging is just reaching the cupboard.
01:04 The stove is kind of like face level.
01:07 RICH KURIANI: Yeah, imagine trying to cook when the stove is this high.
01:10 NANETTE KURIANI: I have to have everything down in the low cupboard or mama's not cooking.
01:15 RICH KURIANI: Coffee in the morning, I'm the one who does that. You know, coffee pot sits
01:20 on a high counter and then you got to pour everything in there. For her, it's like that.
01:25 That's our thing is I'll take care of the high stuff and she takes care of the low stuff.
01:31 The couple first met online when they were living almost 6,000 miles apart.
01:36 RICH KURIANI: I was born in upstate New York and was born and raised here until I left
01:41 for the military, did a stint in the Air Force and then I ended up going working as a military
01:46 contractor in Afghanistan.
01:48 NANETTE KURIANI: I am born in the Philippines in the swamp, in the biggest swamp in Asia.
01:52 When I was a young adult, I would be confident in some things. I had my degree and I, you
02:00 know, I had a job but there was a segment in my life that I had no confidence in like
02:06 dating.
02:07 RICH KURIANI: Nanette and I met on a dating website.
02:10 NANETTE KURIANI: Few days later, he asked if he could come and visit me and I said,
02:14 "Okay." We met each other for the very first time at the airport in the Philippines.
02:19 Before ever meeting in person, Rich and Nanette had both confessed that they are in love with
02:24 each other. But Nanette hadn't shared her exact height.
02:28 RICH KURIANI: I knew that she was shorter but I didn't realise how petite she was. When
02:37 I got off the plane, I was looking through the middle of the crowd and then when I saw
02:41 her, I looked down and then I realised, "Oh wow, she is a lot smaller than I realised."
02:48 But that didn't matter, you know.
02:50 NANETTE KURIANI: Right from the get go, I could tell that this is what I wanted in a
02:54 relationship and I am like, this is the guy that I have been wanting to like just accepting
02:59 of who I am, of you know, where I was in my life at the time.
03:03 The negative reactions the couple have received have varied depending on whether they are
03:08 in the Philippines or the US.
03:10 NANETTE KURIANI: In the US, I get offended when people think that I am a male order bride
03:16 because I am not and it's outlawed in the Philippines. In the Philippines, it was quite
03:21 normal to be dating with a foreign guy but the shock factor was like, "Whoa, you are
03:29 too short and he is too big." In the US, it was like at a bar, you know, they would
03:36 be like, "Why are you bringing a young kid in a bar?"
03:40 The irony is, she has never been ID'd in a bar.
03:43 NANETTE KURIANI: Yes!
03:46 RICHARD KURIANI: We have had people take pictures, we have had people yell across the street,
03:50 we have had people actually approach us. At the end of the day, we are who we are and
03:56 anybody who ever meets Nanette instantly forgets that she is as small as she is because she
04:01 is so much larger in life.
04:03 In spite of the judgement they face, Rich and Nanette knew that they were ready to take
04:07 the next step in their relationship.
04:09 We had a beautiful outdoor wedding and we were right on a cliff overlooking Lake Erie
04:13 with the sunset setting behind us. I had my best friend build us a set of stairs for Nanette.
04:19 It kind of like...
04:21 It leveled us out.
04:22 Yeah.
04:23 So a lot of our wedding photos are a little deceptive. They look like we are closer to
04:27 the same size.
04:28 Well...
04:29 Except for the dancing ones.
04:31 Now we tease my daughter that at the wedding I was really tall.
04:35 I got pregnant when I was thirty... boy, thirty-two?
04:40 Mm-hmm.
04:41 Thirty-two?
04:42 Yeah.
04:43 Our daughter knows that Mama is tiny and Daddy is big. Daddy is big. She wants to be big
04:50 like Daddy and she doesn't want to be short like Mama.
04:53 We've had one time where a gentleman thought that our daughter and my wife were sisters.
05:00 It's my turn to stay in Daddy's lap.
05:03 For Nanette and Rich, their striking height difference has never been an obstacle for
05:08 their love.
05:09 It's such a... I wouldn't say perfect, but it just works so well. It's differences, but
05:16 at the same time core values and where our goals are heading towards the same direction.
05:20 She keeps me grounded. I'd probably be a lot crazier if I didn't have her. At the same
05:25 time, I let her kind of take more chances. I think it kind of goes both ways. That's
05:31 our dynamic. See you when we sit down on the same side.
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