He quickly donned his cassock over his sports gear and calmly began the wedding ceremony of Ian and Ann Galbraith.
And at 4pm on September 25, 1965, the couple were married at St John's Presbyterian Church in Hastings.
A few days earlier, their minister had phoned from the hospital, advising them he wasn’t able to officiate at their wedding.
He said the replacement he had arranged might be a bit late, as he had to play in a crucial hockey match before their wedding ceremony.
"His game went longer than expected," recalls Ann.
Following the reception and wedding breakfast, the wedding party were later piped into the Hastings and Districts Scottish Society’s monthly dinner meeting at another venue.
Said Ian: "We were piped 60 years ago, and this Saturday night at our family gathering in Rangiora, we will once again be piped into the room accompanied by a sword bearer, a haggis bearer, a whisky bearer and a dirk bearer.”
He is thankful to the McAlpines North Canterbury Pipe Band for organising the piping ceremony.
Ann and Ian met on a blind date in 1964.
An apprentice at Ian’s work (a radio service business) asked him and a mate to step in as blind dates for nurses attending the annual nurses’ ball held at the Hastings Memorial Hospital.
"They were short a few men, so we stepped up, but when we got to the nurses' hostel on the Saturday evening, no one even said hello to us.
"After a while, my mate and I decided to leave and go for a coffee.
"But then, I spotted a couple of girls standing by some trees nearby and asked them their names - it was Ann and her friend.
"That’s how it started, and now 60 years later I am so glad I had the nerve to ask her that night," he says.
Ann was working at the hospital as an operating room nurse.
She says she soon got to know Ian loved being part of the Scottish Society community in Hawke's Bay, as they went to dinners and socials every weekend they could.
"I also saw my first man in a dress — a kilt Ian had had specially made years earlier when he had visited Dunedin," Ann said.
"It cost him forty pounds, which was a lot of money in those days."
The couple raised two children who now live in Christchurch.
When Ian retired in 2006 as a director of a company making whiteware in Masterton, they moved to Rangiora to be closer to family.
Ian says he couldn’t have pursued his interests in Scottish societies, model train engineering and photography if it hadn’t been for the love and support of Ann.
Ann says she still loves Scottish dancing and hopes to continue it again in the future.
