'I hope we'll still be enjoying our life together in another 60 years' time'.

Byline: By Cathy Owen South Wales Echo 

As the Queen and Prince Phillip celebrate their diamond wedding anniversary, Cathy Owen talks to a young, modern couple getting married today and two couples who married 60 years ago to find out just how much marriage has changed. When a young Princess Elizabeth walked down the aisle to marry her prince 60 years ago today, she could never have predicted how things would change over the coming six decades.

In 1947, if couples lived together but hadn't tied the knot, they would have been regarded as morally wayward to put it mildly and were often ostracised from society.

In today's world, marriage is very different.

Even the law has been set to recognise the legal rights of people who live together but are not married and more than 70 per cent of couples getting married have lived together first.

As the Royals celebrate their diamond anniversary, they join a select group. More than 401,000 couples married in Wales and England in 1947, but according to Office for National Statistics estimates, just one in 10 of these will celebrate their diamond anniversary this year.

One of those couples is Trevor and Mair Owen, of Tonyrefail, who are as much in love today as they were on their wedding day, 60 years ago.

The couple's day was very different from the glittering royal wedding.

While the Queen and Prince Philip married at Westminster Abbey in front of royals from across Europe and held their reception at Buckingham Palace, Trevor and Mair tied knot at St David's Church, Tonyrefail, and their party was held in the local Ambulance Hall with plates, cutlery and food donated by people in the local community.

But just over two months on from their own wedding, the South Wales couple were still walking on air as the royals got married.

"I remember it very well because it was so soon after our own," said Trevor, 83.

"We were still on a high and had just learnt that Mair was pregnant with our first child Beverley, so the royal wedding was secondary news for us. We were so excited. Mair was the prettiest girl in the village and is as beautiful today as she was back then. We have been very happy."

Trevor and Mair, whose first date was going to the pictures in Porth, had been together for three years before getting married. But there was definitely no living together before the wedding day.

"I was a great believer in marriage and I still am today," said Trevor, a retired Royal Mint worker.

"We would never have lived together before getting that piece of paper to say we were married and that is how it should be."

But not everything is different, predictions are that 60 years on from today, given current divorce and mortality rates, the proportion of couples likely to mark their diamond wedding anniversary is likely to be similar to those that married in 1947. The newlyweds: As the Queen and Prince Phillip celebrate their 60th anniversary, a young, modern Cardiff couple are preparing to embark on their own journey of marriage together, which they too hope will last 60 years.

How times have changed! Not only are there fewer marriages - figures for 2005 show 244,710 - but the profile of a newlywed is also very different.

Architects Beryl Chung and Alan Yip, who are tying the knot at Cardiff's City Hall today, are like many young couple getting married in the 21st Century.

In 1947, the average age to get married was 26 for men and 23 for women. By 2005 this had risen to 30 and 28. Beryl, 28, and Alan, 31, have known each other since they were 18 but had lost touch until they started working for the same company, Boyes Rees Architects in Cardiff city centre five years ago.

Their wedding could not be any more different from the Queen and Prince Philip's glittering ceremony.

"We had no idea our wedding was on the same day as the Queen's anniversary when we were planning it, " said Beryl.

"The registrar phoned me to ask if I realised it was on the actual diamond anniversary, I thought she was phoning to cancel."

In fact, the reason why the couple chose the actual date was a Chinese tradition of consulting the Almanac, which gives you a list of the best dates to get married on.

"We only got engaged in May," said Beryl. "So there has been a lot to do in a very short period of time but Alan has had a lot of input and we have had help from our families."

While the Queen married in front of royal families and guests from across America, Beryl and Alan are marrying in front of 90 people in the Hall's city chamber.

That ceremony is being followed by a reception for 270 people at the Happy Gathering Chinese restaurant in Canton, Cardiff. The Queen and Prince Philip had a "wedding breakfast" for 150 people at Buckingham Palace, Beryl and Alan are having a nine course banquet.

And while the royal couple had more than 2,500 wedding presents, the Cardiff couple are not having any.

"We didn't want to have a present list because we live together and already have most of the stuff so we felt it was not fair," said Alan.

"A lot has changed in 60 years," said Beryl.

"But hopefully we will still be enjoying our life together in another 60 years' time." 'She emerged from the sea like Ursula Andress': Gordon Bailey and his wife Molly exchanged vows on the same day as the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh.

Their seafront romance blossomed after a chance meeting and has lasted the past 60 years.

Gordon, from Tonypandy, said they met as she emerged from the sea "like Ursula Andress".

But while the wedding of the then Princess Elizabeth was planned to the last detail, the Baileys got hitched on Molly's afternoon off from work on November 20, 1947.

Mr Bailey, now a retired 84-year-old, said: "We met on the seafront in Lowestoft. She was just coming out of the sea and I was walking along the promenade. She came out of the water like Ursula Andress and we cast eyes on each other and that was it."

It was 1945 and Mr Bailey had been stationed to the Suffolk town from South Wales while waiting to be demobbed.

He had spent part of World War II mine-sweeping in the English Channel on a Royal Naval Patrol Service vessel.

A few years after that fateful first meeting the couple arranged to be married on Mrs Bailey's afternoon off from a cake shop where she worked.

"We had to beg, borrow and pinch clothing coupons so we could get a dress for my wife.

"I wore a suit my father owned, we were virtually the same size then, because we didn't have enough coupons for me," said Mr Bailey.

Mr Bailey and his wife settled in Middlesex, in the 1950s where he was a factory worker and she a dental nurse.

He added: "The reception was at a restaurant next to the shop where Molly worked and we had a lovely spread of sandwiches and cakes."

The couple were in the congregation at Westminster Abbey yesterday.

"We've had our ups and downs same as the Queen - no married life is plane sailing," said Mr Bailey. "But you've got to work together as a team and you can't be selfish." Then and now: 60 years of change: Population

1947 43,050,000

Now 53,728,800

1947 881,026

Now 669,601

BIRTHS OUTSIDE MARRIAGE

1947 5.3 per cent

Now 43.5 per cent

1947 515,591

Now 502,599

1947 401,210

Now 244,710p

LIFE EXPECTANCY 

1947 Males 63 years, females 76 years

Now Males 76 years, females 81 years.

1947 60,254

Now 132,562

PINT OF MILK

1947 2d (old pence)

Now 39p

LOAF OF BREAD

1947 2d (old pence)

Now 90p