Golden wedding: Bob and Chrissy Williams renew their vows

Their love is so strong that one wedding just wasn't enough.
Bob and Chrissy renewed their vows at Portsmouth Register Office this month. Picture credit: shortsphotographyhavant.co.uk.Bob and Chrissy renewed their vows at Portsmouth Register Office this month. Picture credit: shortsphotographyhavant.co.uk.
Bob and Chrissy renewed their vows at Portsmouth Register Office this month. Picture credit: shortsphotographyhavant.co.uk.

Bob and Chrissy Williams from Waterlooville celebrated their golden wedding this month by renewing their vows for not the first, but the second time.

The couple declared their love for one another at Portsmouth Register Office in front of family and friends.

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Sixty-eight-year-old Chrissy says: ‘It was a beautiful day. We renewed our vows at the same time we married 50 years ago, at 11.30am.

‘We had a gold limo take us into Portsmouth and all our grandchildren and great-grandchildren were bridesmaids and pageboys.’

But the celebrations didn’t stop there, afterwards the couple went to Portsdown Hill for pictures and champagne, back to their house for a meal, and finally, on to Cowplain Activity Centre for a party with 200 guests.

Chrissy and 71-year-old Bob made a pact to renew their vows when they reached 50 years together, after renewing them for the first time in St Lucia on their silver wedding.

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‘We were planning to go back to St Lucia for our 50th,’ Chrissy adds.

‘But it was too expensive, so we decided to have a bigger celebration here with all the family.’

Back in 1965, Bob and Chrissy met in a pub at Paulsgrove. Bob was playing darts while Chrissy was chatting with a friend.

‘Bob asked me out for a date and picked me up the next evening in a Triumph Renown,’ says Chrissy, who worked at the Johnson & Johnson factory.

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‘The door wouldn’t shut so we had to tie it to the steering wheel to keep it from swinging open.’

Bob, who worked for Midland Cattle at Portchester, admits there was something in particular that first attracted him to Chrissy.

‘She had a cracking pair of legs and I’ve always been a leg man,’ he chuckles.

‘We just clicked and six months later we married at the old register office along St Michael’s Road.’

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The couple went on to have three children: Graham, 49, Julie, 48, and Robert, 46. They also have seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Over the years the couple have enjoyed going camping with their family and, as they got older, holidays and cruises.

Bob says: ‘We’re like chalk and cheese. We each have our own interests and get on with our own things, but it just works.

‘Marriage is all about give and take and understanding.’

But there’s one thing that both Chrissy and Bob are interested in, and that is their big, loving family.

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Chrissy says: ‘We’re very family orientated, we spend a lot of time with ours, there’s always something going on.

‘Bob’s quite romantic and we are still affectionate as a couple even now.

‘If you’ve got any problems in a marriage you should talk them through, but even if we do have problems, we still love each other.’