Everyone thinks they want to be in love and live happily ever after. But true love and romance is a lot harder than it looks.
So, 70 years of marriage is definitely worth celebrating.
In fact, there should be more than celebrating. You should be awarded a medal or a plaque or something as a badge of honor for having survived that many decades of partnership.
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For Anna Behning’s grandparents Melvin and Nancy, they went viral for their 70th wedding anniversary.
“I was literally scrubbing my kitchen floors when I got the notification. I tried to explain to grandpa and grandma that they are famous and grandpa asked ‘what newspaper’ (lol no concept of the internet whatsoever),” Behning said.
Behning dedicated a blog post to the 91 and 86-year-old couple.
In her post, Behning promised to reveal the “secret’ to being married for seven decades which she learned through interviewing her grandparents.
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Nancy and Melvin first met at a roller staking rink in Mitchell, South Dakota. It wasn’t long after that fateful night that Melvin proposed at a local ballpark.
On their wedding day in January 1952, Nancy wore a $35 dress and a $15 veil. She ended up saving those special garments and wore them for an anniversary photo shoot.
Melvin wore his army uniform that day and it still fits him after all these days.
Melvin wore that same uniform while being shipped off to basic training shortly after being married.
He later fought in the Korean War. The couple still lives in the same town they were married in and have five kids, 12 grandchildren, and 21 great-grandchildren.
“My grandparents have been there for me since I was born,” she tells My Modern Met. “They attended every concert, sports game, and extracurricular event that they could. I was also blessed to go to college in the same town that they live in. I would spend lots of nights at their home doing laundry or eating grandpa’s famous steak. So being this close to my grandparents made this photoshoot even more special.”
So, what is the secret to their lasting marriage and staying together for so many years?
Here’s the advice the couple had to give…
“Forget and forgive and make the best of your life situations,” Nancy advises.
Nancy also said that keeping God at the center of their marriage was the key to their successful marriage.
“You won’t always agree, sometimes you have a disagreement, but when you have one of those you sit down and talk about it and come up with an answer,” Melvin says. “Don’t bring it back up!”
The wedding photos that Behning took are absolutely stunning.
And incredibly sweet displaying the true love between these two souls.
“This is why I take my job as a wedding photographer sooo seriously,” Behning said on Instagram.
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“Seventy years after their marriage and I’m still swooning over the only 2 photos I’ve ever seen from my grandparents’ wedding day. Love is so beautiful. Marriage is a gift from God. I’m lucky to have them as an example of lifelong commitment.”
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