Lovebirds Nel and Stan Harradine were one of three couples to renew their vows, for the third time.

“We met when I was 17 and Stan was 19,” Mrs Harradine said.

“He was new in town, I knew all the boys, I wouldn’t have anything to do with them and I didn’t have a boyfriend.”

The pair met in Mungindi, a small town on the NSW and QLD border.

Mr Harradine had left Tamworth on a fishing trip, and came down to visit the Aboriginal people, where he met Mrs Harradine.

Married at 19-years-old in a small ceremony in a registry, Mr Harradine proposed when he found out Mrs Harradine was pregnant with his child.

“I thought it was a pretty good reason to get married,” she said.

“I’ve got six children now, and heaps of grandkids.”

The pair split up for a few years, and then remarried in a bigger ceremony in 2000.

“We had the works,” Mrs Harradine said.

“Stan’s hardworking, he’s always working – he was good with the kids and a really good father.

“He’s involved in everything in the communities where we’ve lived, he did a lot for the junior league and he was always helping kids.”

Next in line to wed again were Frank and Sue Nano, who met in 1963 when shift dresses were all the rage.

Both went to the Young Catholic Workers group and practiced for concerts together.

“We just clicked,” Mrs Nano said.

“Particularly at concerts, he always mentions that I was the only one to tie his bow tie in the correct way.”

Surprising Mrs Nano on her 21st birthday, Mr Nano proposed, and they were married at St Mary’s Cathedral in Armidale on February 11, 1967.

“We’ve been married for 51 years, you have to have love and respect, continual companionship and look out for each other,” Mrs Nano said. ”I fell in love with his good looks, he’s a very caring person, very attentive, always very respectful – opened the car doors for you, always let you walk ahead, a very old fashioned gentleman.”

MARRIED for forty-two years, Ron and Lorraine Coad took the Royal Wedding as the perfect occasion to renew their vows.

The pair met at Penshurst Uniting Church near Hurstville, when Lorraine was 24 and Ron was 30.

“She used to come on Sundays, I would go back to Penshurst every weekend to play the organ and run the choir,” Mr Coad said.

“She used to come and sit there and I’d watch her in the mirror of the organ.

“The fact that somebody wanted to go out with me made me want to go out with her, she was very pretty and a lovely natured person – she still is.”

Mr Coad proposed on Mrs Coad’s front doorstep, and then went inside to ask her father for permission.

They knew each other for a few years before Mr Coad proposed, but broke up briefly and got back together when Mrs Coad would visit him in Picton.

“It wasn’t until I was 36 and she was 30 that we married,” he said.

“I thought I’d never get married but here I am.”

They didn’t have any children of their own, but took on three foster children from Yugoslavia – who they still keep in contact with today.

Mr Coad has been a carer for his wife for more than 10 years, and moved to Armidale so she could be put into secure dementia care.

He wanted to renew his vows after losing his wedding ring some time ago in a park at Nambucca.

“I’ve been wanting to get a new ring so if anything happened to Lorraine I would have that to remember her by,” he said.

“But it didn’t seem quite right to just put another ring on, it may not mean as much to her but it means a lot to me – it’s not just there for dress up.

“You give yourself to each other, you prepare to give up things at times so you both feel that you’re part of a union.”

The pair renewed their vows at a ceremony at Autumn Lodge, attended by family, friends and fellow residents.

The ceremony was officiated by Uniting Church Reverend Joane Smalbil, who became minister of the church in November last year.

The vow renewal took place on Friday.