He was a farmer's son from New Zealand, she was a lawyer from the United Kingdom who had never been on a farm.
It was to the amusement of Lynsey Stratford's friends that she ended up on a dairy farm after meeting husband Chris on a Contiki trip in the United States.
In the dairy industry, there were lots of different ways for people to get to where they wanted - they just needed to know what they wanted, Mr and Mrs Stratford said.
The couple were now equity partners at South Coast Dairy Ltd, farming at Curio Bay in Southland.
"What's important is you know what's important to you and what success looks like to you," Mrs Stratford said.
Mr Stratford was brought up on sheep and beef farms at Gorge Rd and Milton. Sheep farming was "pretty tough" in the 1980s and that moulded where he headed later in life.
After school, he attended Telford and Lincoln and milked cows in the summer for his uncle which helped pay his way, so he left Lincoln with no debt.
Embarking on his OE, he headed to the UK and did some relief milking, then went to Australia and the US, where he worked on large arable properties. The hours were long but he was able to save money.
The couple met when Mrs Stratford was embarking on her OE and they married in 2002. By then, they were back in the UK - Mr Stratford was contract milking in Surrey and she was working as a lawyer in London.
In 2004, Mr Stratford's father was diagnosed with cancer so they decided to come back to New Zealand.
As he had experience in arable, sheep and dairy, there were plenty of job offers for Mr Stratford but he felt there were more opportunities in the dairy industry.
So he took a job at Greenpark, near Lincoln, as 2IC on a 1000-cow farm. Realising he needed to increase his skills, he attended lots of discussion groups and the nearby Lincoln demonstration farm was a great resource.
By 2008, the couple thought perhaps they should progress in the industry but it was hard to do so when they enjoyed the balance they had, Mr Stratford said.
His cousin, who had been leasing a farm at Curio Bay, approached the couple. He wanted to set up an equity partnership to convert from sheep and beef to dairy, and Mr Stratford was one of the few people he knew of who knew how to milk cows.
At the same time, the couple sadly had a wake-up call when one of their friends died suddenly. She and her husband - who had children the same age as their own - had been building a business and making a lot of sacrifices, thinking they would enjoy the benefits in the future.
It reinforced that the couple wanted to enjoy their own journey, Mr Stratford said.
They arrived in Curio Bay in 2009. There was a lot of trouble getting the consents to convert the farm but, fortunately, they had a good equity partnership.
Mrs Stratford believed the dairy industry was very special. When her husband returned to New Zealand, he did not have what the industry was looking for: pasture management experience.
But three years at Greenpark building skills and developing himself gave Mr Stratford "heaps of opportunities".
And that was a special feature of the industry: if you were prepared to develop those skills, you could move into business ownership in a really short space of time, she said.
Three things were very important for the couple: staff - developing and supporting people and finding out what their team wanted and helping them get there; their children Callum and Olivia - it was important for them to have a work-life balance and their goal was for their children to see farming as a great lifestyle; and stewardship - taking care of people, animals and land in their care.
Their children often came to planting days on the property and, through that, had taken an interest. Callum had also voluntarily been trapping pests.
"There's a lot of talk about sustainability but our kids have seen it first hand," Mr Stratford said.
The Stratfords also hosted many visitors, from school pupils through to conservationists, on the property.
The couple were focused on running a high performance dairy business and they were always trying to exceed industry best practice, Mrs Stratford said.
Money was not a massive motivator but they wanted to be building equity. Farm ownership had never been a goal for them, yet they had a successful career "in lots of different ways".
They also had no regrets; they had always surrounded themselves with "really good people" and so many people had helped them on their journey.
When it came to recruiting people to the industry, Mrs Stratford said there were "amazing" opportunities so the story needed to be told better.
And all the options needed to be emphasised so people understood what they were and what was on offer.
