That has been the case for Oamaru couple Gordon — who is affectionately known as the butterfly man — and Joan Martin, who celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary today.
Mr Martin (92), originally from Kaeo in Northland, and his wife met while working at the Toll House telephone exchange, in Wellington, in 1949.
"I just used to eye this fella a bit that was in the overseas section," Mrs Martin (93) said, laughing.
In 1952, the couple returned to Mrs Martin’s (nee Beatty) hometown, Oamaru, and married at the Weston Church. They settled in North Otago, owning the dairy, a general store and in 1969, they opened the first New World supermarket south of Christchurch, in Weston.
In 1986, they moved to Wanaka, running the Glendhu Bay Motor Camp for five years, before taking over the Wanaka Lakeview Holiday Park for about 15 years.
They loved interacting with people, and working at the camps had allowed them to make friends across the world.
"We’ve been involved with people all our lives. After spending so long at a motor camp, seeing families come back each year and we saw them grow up and their children grow up," he said.
The couple retired to Oamaru and Mr Martin joined the Waitaki Community Gardens as the head gardner.
After being asked by the gardens trust chairwoman Gloria Hurst to start a monarch butterfly project, Mr Martin planted more than 1000 swan plants alongside the Friends of the Monarch Butterfly group.
Mrs Martin said her husband fielded calls from the community about monarchs.
"The elderly ladies love him," she said, laughing.
"They ring him up [saying] ‘we’ve got too many caterpillars on our plants’, so away he goes with his shoe box, holes in the top of it and off he goes to collect their extra caterpillars."
Mrs Martin loved crafts, bookbinding, music, dressing up in Victorian era costumes and had been heavily involved in Rural Women networks. Mr Martin, a Rotarian for 57 years, also loved racehorses.
It was their love of people and different interests that brought them together, he said.
"One thing people keep asking is ‘what’s the secret?’.
"Everything we’ve done — we’ve had our own interests and then we’ve done things together. To us, that’s what made it work."
They were delighted to receive cards from Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro, National MP Jacqui Dean and Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher congratulating them on their platinum wedding anniversary.
The couple had three children Jenny, Charles, and the late-Christopher, five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
They planned to celebrate their anniversary with a family lunch on Saturday.
