Rotorua's Zilpha and George Coppard would be the first to admit their marriage did not get off to the best of starts, but 60 years later they remain the best of friends.
The pair were married in Rotorua's St John's Church on Pukuatua St today in 1952, but it wasn't rain or a drunken uncle who spoiled their nuptials - it was murder.
At the time Mrs Coppard (nee Storey) was working as a bank teller at the National Bank in Rotorua when she handed over money for wages to a local mill manager to pay his staff.
The very next day the mill manager and his wife were killed and the money stolen.
A few months later, on March 13 in Mt Eden Prison, William Giovanni Silveo Fiori, 29, was hanged for shooting and killing the timber mill manager, John Gabolinscy and his wife Marie while stealing £1010 (about $62,000 in today's money) of the mill's payroll from their home in Minginui, 95km southeast of Rotorua.