MARION – Bishop John Dooher states that his mom always said, “When it rains on the bride, it's good luck. And when it’s sunny on the bride, it’s good luck.”

Either way, Marion couple Mark and Liz Fredericks had good luck. Dooher married the couple on Oct. 8, 1972, when he was 29 years old.

At age 79, he renewed the couple’s vows at a ceremony at the Inn on Shipyard Park in Mattapoisett, in the pouring rain.

“I had no idea if [Dooher] would be dead or alive,” Liz said. “But when we decided to renew our vows, I was determined to locate him to see if he could come.”

When she tracked him down at the Regina Clary House in Boston, a home for retired priests, Liz said she was grinning from ear to ear. She went to visit, took him out to lunch, and asked if he would renew their vows.

“He said he would be delighted.”

Reminiscing back on their years together, Mark pointed out that it was amazing how he was a sailor when they married and retired as a command master chief, and Dooher was a priest and then renewed their vows as a Bishop.

“Now he’s always going to be a good friend,” Mark added.

More than 30 members of the Fredericks’ friends and family gathered for their ceremony at the inn. Liz said that the ceremony was “wonderful.”

“Everyone cheered and clinked their glasses,” she recalled, “and then we kissed like newlyweds.” The couple then danced to their song, “Could I Have This Dance” by Anne Murray.

“Even though it was rainy and cloudy, it was a perfect, perfect day,” Mark said.

The couple first met on a blind date. Mark grew up in Michigan, but was transferred to Boston as a sailor in the Navy. Liz, age 18 at the time, was a senior at Notre Dame in Hingham, an all-girls academy.

“There wasn’t much access to boys or men, so I asked my friend Joan if she could fix me up with someone,” Liz explained.

Joan’s husband was in the navy, so it was an easy match. Only the couple didn’t tell their friend, Mark, that it was going to be a date.

“We went to a dog track,” she recalled. “Normally you would not take a first date to a dog track.”

Regardless of the location, the two hit it off. A year later, when Liz was 19 and Mark was 22, they were married at a church in Norwell.

They then moved to Smithfield, Rhode Island, but decided to move to a home in Marion in 1989. They rented, and then bought the house in Marion in 1991.

Mark was able to retire from the Navy at age 39, and has sold industrial parts online since. Liz worked for Verizon, but has since retired as well. Liz says that she likes to split her time and visit Florida during some parts of the year, but Mark tends to prefer to stay up north year-round.

“We like Marion because it's so quaint and beautiful,” Mark said. “We have a beautiful deck that looks across the Weweantic. It's one of our favorite places to sit out and have our coffee. It's a beautiful community.”

The Fredricks’ never had children, but they have had more than 15 cats in their years together.

“We never went to a shelter, they always find us,” Liz said.

She says that currently they just have one cat, Prince Harry.

“He’ll be our last one,” Mark added, though he clarified that Prince Harry is “still in the kitten phase.”

The couple is still finding more ways than the renewal to celebrate their 50th this year. They recently took a road trip to Michigan to visit Mark’s family, and will soon take an Amtrak to New York City.

“We are living the American dream,” Mark said.