01:00 AM EDT on Saturday, June 25, 2005

BY FAYE B. ZUCKERMAN
Journal Staff Writer

When Helen Sebesta searched for a game to play at her son's bridal shower, she remembered her fascination with the 50th anniversary photos in The Providence Journal.

Sebesta, an interior designer who lives in East Greenwich, said that she stared at the pictures, amazed at how different the couples looked from their wedding-day photos five decades earlier. She said, "You didn't believe that they were the same people."

That's when the proverbial light bulb went off over her head. Rather than play the same old wedding shower games, she would clip photos from the newspaper and ask guests to match newlywed snapshots to 50th anniversary pictures.

By the time friends and relatives at the 2002 bridal shower of Erik and Lisa Bozoyan Sebesta of Cambridge, Mass., finished pairing couples on their 50th anniversary with newlywed photos, she realized she had created a winning combination. "The younger and older people found it stimulated conversation about what makes a good marriage," she said. "It was more than just an ice-breaker. People started wondering about the couples and what was the secret to their success.

"It became a topic of discussion. I also think that the young people were surprised to see how much people had changed, and how difficult it was to match the couples."

Erik, a technology consultant who grew up in East Greenwich, had been searching for a business idea. He figured, why not turn his mother's clippings of Rhode Island couples into a specialty product?

In 2004, 10 stores in five states and www.youhaventchangedabit.com started selling Sebesta's "You Haven't Changed a Bit!," a game celebrating the perfect match. (Locally, it is on sale at Thorpe's in East Greenwich, Zero Wampum in Wakefield, Felicia's Giftsin Fall River, and Blue Cloud in Somerville, Mass.) It has sold 500 copies at $19.95.

"You Haven't Changed a Bit!" includes photographs of couples from Southern New England who had their wedding day and their 50th anniversary photos published in The Journal.

Erik interviewed the couples for tips on how to make a successful union and printed their advice on the game cards.

"It was the best part of the process," he said. "Every day I came back from the interviews with a big smile on my face."

He added that one of the primary purposes of the board game is to gain an appreciation of how powerful love can be between two people. "I could see that they still have the twinkle in their eyes. They still genuinely cared for each other."

The object of "You Haven't Changed a Bit!" is to correctly match a picture of the couple at their 50th anniversary with their wedding photograph. Players divide up into two teams. Each team receives a game board with photos of the couples on their wedding day, and a deck of cards of the couples some 50 years later. Then you must try to match the anniversary photo with the same couple's wedding picture.

Does it sound easy? On a recent Friday night, we put two couples to the test. They gave the game a whirl and found it enjoyable and a challenge.

During the first round, Save the Bay advocate and spokesman John Torgan and his fiancée Jillian Safer, a freelance writer, had matched two. Doing only marginally better with four matches were Mike and Donna DeForbes, who have been married for seven years and live in the Edgewood section of Cranston.

"It's much more difficult than you think," said Safer. "It's definitely something that would be fun to do at a shower. It gets you talking about relationships."

Added graphic artist Donna DeForbes, "I found myself gazing at the older couples faces waiting for their younger selves to emerge."

Both teams said that they read the back of the cards, and were entertained by the tips to a successful marriage. They respected the genuine warmth, and admired the couples' longevity.

They also liked the idea that everybody was from the Rhode Island area. "Hey, I think I recognize one," said Torgan, who grew up on the East Side of Providence.

For information on "You Haven't Changed A Bit!," visit www.youhaventchangedabit.com