Inge and Doug Dedic’s wedding day in 1948 was far from picture perfect, but the couple’s marriage since has been a living testament to the idea love can conquer all.

Yesterday, a diamond ring marking the pair’s 60th anniversary joined the silver wedding band on Mrs Dedic’s finger.

Mr Dedic, 82, lost his ring some time ago, and it has since been replaced with a gold band.

But his wife still wears hers, six decades after it was first fashioned from an East German five-mark coin and slipped onto her hand.

The couple met in 1947, when they saw each other across a dance floor near a displaced persons camp at Geestacht, near Hamburg.

Serbian-born Mr Dedic had lived at the camp since serving with the British army in World War II.

The duo faced a language barrier — Mrs Dedic speaking only German, and Mr Dedic a mixture of Serbian and English — but “love at first sight” led them to marry the following May.

“When you love each other you couldn’t care less,” Mrs Dedic said of the couple’s modest wedding day.

Mrs Dedic moved into the refugee camp after the ceremony and the couple migrated to Australia, arriving in Melbourne on Anzac Day, 1950.

The Dedics still live in the Wodonga home they built together after spending three months at the Bonegilla migrant camp.

They have two sons, Brakao and Dragan, and four grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Mrs Dedic, 80, joked about the secret to the couple’s marital success.

“The best way to keep together is to say ‘yes dear’ but do your own thing anyway,” she said.

“But the main thing is to compromise — never go to bed angry.”