They celebrated their 60^th wedding anniversary on Sunday, March 24, 2024 after family threw a surprise party for them.

The couple met in Warrnambool where Mrs van Bruggen had moved to from Casterton when she was 19 to work at Fletcher Jones,

"I was on one of the machines doing pockets," she said.

Marion was down the street with a friend one day when she spotted Fred in a grey Volkswagon, and said friend: "Gees I like that fellow in that car". "I didn't know who he was," she said.

But her friend's boyfriend happened to be a friend of Fred's, and it turned out their dads worked with each other in Cobden.

One day, Fred turned up at Marion's door to let her dad know that the pays hadn't come through.

"We were just talking and I just mentioned Jailhouse Rock," she said.

Fred then asked her to go with him to see the Elvis Presley film at the drive-in. "That was it," she said.

The couple would go to the drive-in regularly to watch a movies.

"He was a milkman and he had to start work at two in the morning. I was willing to sit there watch the movie while he had his head on my shoulder sound asleep," Marion said.

The following year the got engaged, and after she turned 21 they got married at the Warrnambool Baptist Church in Koroit Street on March 7, 1964.

The couple honeymooned in Adelaide, and had five children.

Marion later went to work at the South Warrnambool Woollen Mills, as did her husband.

Fre also worked at Dickins supermarket and then later worked at Fletcher Jones until it closed.

After 60 years together, Mrs van Bruggen said: "I'd do it all again".