A SAUCHIE couple have celebrated fifty years of marriage with a trip to the movies – in the same building they first wedded in all those years ago.

Elizabeth and Denis Hinchcliffe, both 69, visited Alloa Cinema at Chalmers Church on Thursday, October 4, exactly 50 years after their wedding there in 1968.

By chance, they had the venue all to themselves to enjoy their special night.

Elizabeth claimed going back to the church was something they had been thinking about in the run up to their golden anniversary.

She told the Advertiser: "It was such a nice night. We had joked about going back in the first place and then we decided to do it.

"We were both very interested to see the changes to the church since our wedding. It's such a nice cinema now."

When asked about all the time they have spent together, Elizabeth claimed the years seemed to have flown by.

She said: "People keep asking what it's been like. It doesn't feel like 50 years at all.

"I don't know how to describe it really – we've just had a lot of great times."

Elizabeth and Denis first met through friends back in the 60s, and it seems it was love at first sight.

She said: "It was a friend who introduced us. Denis was in the Merchant Navy and was a friend of a friend, and when he came home one day we were introduced to each other, and it blossomed from there.

"The first time we went out was on Valentine's Day 1968, and then we were married on the fourth of October the same year.

"We were both very young, and it was a very short romance.

"We were aged just 19 but we had already made arrangements to get married.

"It was about nine months between the time we were first introduced and when we actually got married, so it was very quick."

Denis, clearly smitten with his wife, even decided to leave his job travelling around the world to be with Elizabeth.

She said: "He even quit the navy. He was such a romantic man."

It proved to be a wise decision, as the pair went on to enjoy all the years they have spent together – and are looking forward to many more years to come.