“I saw her in a photo and I said ‘oh boy I’m going to marry her’,” Mr Andrighetto said.

That was in 1951. 

Mr Andrighetto wouldn’t actually meet his future wife, until five years later in February of 1956. 

Three months after that on May 26, 1956 they were married and this Thursday the pair will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary.

Mr Andrighetto came to Griffith in 1951, leaving his home Cavaso Del Tomba in the north of Italy in the search of opportunities, for better times and to make a life.

“It was hard work, seven days a week,” he said.  

“I was here for five years and thinking of going back to Italy and then I saw Ilva and never had that thought again.”

“I was thinking that night, I’ll go to the pictures with my cousin and his wife, who had offered me a spare ticket.

“The fourth ticket was Ilva’s and that’s how I met her.

“I got home that night, went to bed and I thought ‘Ilva is the girl I saw in the photo’. 

“I knew she was the one and so I asked her to marry me straight away.”

Mrs Andrighetto, as she is now known, had also come from Italy, leaving her home in the port of Pescara. Her father was an officer in WWII, and her family had been living in a war-torn area. She said there was no longer anything left for her there and remembers with clarity meeting her good-looking future husband that night at the pictures. 

“We fell in love and that’s it,” she said.

They went on to raise five daughters and a son on their 23-acre fruit farm.

From a lifetime of experience in loving another person, the two have some sound advice.

“Patience and commitment, when we argue, regardless of who is right or wrong, it’s finished and we don’t bring it up again and again,” Mr Andrighetto said. “We never had a problem with jealousy because she trusts me and I trust her, that’s the power of love.”

For Mrs Andrighetto it’s a similarly simple equation. 

“Respect, patience and forgiveness, that’s my advice for a successful marriage,” she said.

The couple’s children have watched their parents love story throughout their lives. Today there are more than 60 people in their extended family, created from a single meeting in a picture show. 

“Mum and Dad are warm, generous, loving and have exemplary work ethics,” daughter Maria Searls said. “They have lived through hard times and illness and argue every day, but they can’t live without each other, and their family.”