The newly married couple left the chapel under a tunnel of hockey sticks, a sport they were both involved in. The wedding date was even selected because it was between sports seasons.
"They didn’t drop any on us," Mrs McKay, nee Loudon, joked.
The couple first met on a blind date at a wedding dance in Oamaru.
Mr McKay, 81, was a carpenter’s apprentice and Mrs McKay, 80, was working at the North Otago Farmer’s Co-op department store.
The decision to get married was a low-key affair with no proper proposal and they married in 1965.
The family, which by then included sons Paul and Simon, moved to Middlemarch in 1973, which Mrs McKay described as a big change.
Mr McKay changed trades and worked as a welder, while Mrs McKay drove school buses.
In 1974, the family’s third child, daughter Nici, was born.
As the children approached high school age the family moved to Alexandra to be nearer Dunstan High School.
The couple were always busy.
Mrs McKay worked on an asparagus farm, then on an orchard and Mr McKay started work as a maintenance carpenter for the Electricity Department.
In the late 1980s, Mr McKay was made redundant, so the couple started a rural mail run, which lasted 24 years.
The couple still coached and played representative hockey. Mrs McKay did a stint as president of the Central Otago Hockey Association.
Horses were a big part of Mrs McKay’s life and she was a founding member of the Dunstan Riding Club and Dunstan Equestrian Centre.
She also coached the New Zealand Special Olympic equestrian team who went to the world games in the United States in the late 1990s.
Mrs McKay is also a committee member of the Central Goldfields Heritage Trust.
Mr McKay was a member of the Lions Club for 47 years, first joining the organisation’s Strath Taieri branch as a chartered member and then the Alexandra branch.
The McKays said they had had a busy and adventurous life with too many good memories to pick just one that stood out.
Compromise was one of the most important things for a long marriage, they said.
"I became the one that went and did the things and Bob was content to stay and work at home because we had a lifestyle block," Mrs McKay said.
"The children learned a lot from what we both could offer them."
Supporting one another through good times and bad was also an important thing, she said.
