When the photographer didn’t show up for their wedding, Paul and Lorene Klutts weren’t too upset. In 1939 it wasn’t commonplace to hire a photographer for a wedding so the nuptials proceeded without the clicking and flashing of a camera.

“We had someone who was supposed to come and take pictures but when the wedding started, he wasn’t there,” Paul said. “There were some family members taking pictures, but we don’t have any of those in our possession.”

So on July 8 the couple celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary without pictures but full of memories and stories.

The Kluttses were introduced by mutual friends at a dance in October of 1938 at Mississippi Southern — now the University of Southern Mississippi.

“That was one of the first dances at the college,” he said. “Dances were just starting, especially in central Mississippi. They were still considered a bit scandalous”

And from the start Paul, then 22, was struck by 19-year-old Lorene.

“She was sassy,” he said. “I thought she was a pretty girl, but she was sassy.”

The couple courted for nine months before being married in Hattiesburg. The courtship wouldn’t have lasted that long but the Kluttses were not sure they could live on Paul’s $25-a-week salary from Coca-Cola.

But after careful budgeting and planning, they decided they could make it work and the planning began for a July wedding.

“He decided he couldn’t live without me,” Lorene, 89, said.

But Paul, 92, remembers the events a little differently.

“I think she actually decided she couldn’t live without me,” he said.

But no matter who decided what, Lorene purchased a white lace dress from a Hattiesburg clothing store.

“It didn’t take me long to pick that dress out,” she said. “I still have it in my cedar chest, but I doubt I could get into it now.”

After the summer wedding, the couple honeymooned on the Mississippi coast.

“The motel was a group of individual houses — they were all like that back then — and it wasn’t air conditioned so that little room was just hot,” he said. “I remember we’d leave the refrigerator open to try to cool that place off.”

After the honeymoon, the couple returned to Hattiesburg where Paul continued working for Coca-Cola and Lorene “kept house.”

They had three daughters, Carole, Kay and Susan, and one son, Paul Jr., and Lorene was active in their schools.

“(Our son) Paul was born 12 years after our last daughter,” Paul said. “When Lorene found out, she said ‘I’ll have to be in PTA for 10 more years.’”

But despite being busy with work and children, the Kluttses developed a love for traveling — both in the United States and abroad.

“Usually we’d just rent a car when we got there and wing it,” Paul said.

Sometimes that worked out for them, and other times the car trips were a bit more adventurous.

“I drove in England,” Lorene said. “I’ll never do that again because you drive on the wrong side of the road.”

And while Lorene wasn’t fond of driving in England, it was Italy’s traffic that got Paul a little flustered.

“Italy is a nice place, just not to drive in,” he said. “They’d honk at you for anything and give you the thumb.”

Though their travels were sometimes adventurous, Paul said he’d suggest all couples take the time to travel together.

“Some of our greatest memories were when we traveled abroad together,” he said.

But, the Kluttses don’t have to be in a foreign country to enjoy being married. The Kluttses also have a home on Cross Bayou in Monterey and have spent nearly every weekend for almost 40 years.

Paul, who, while still working for Coca-Cola in Natchez started a business that canned and bottled Coca-Cola, said their weekend house allowed him to leave his hectic work life behind for at least two days a week.

“For years, I didn’t have a phone out there, because I knew if I had a phone people would call me,” he said. “If they really needed me they could come get me.”

Now the Kluttses spend their time at the bayou house tending their garden and fishing for white perch.

Paul still enjoys the trips to the bayou because of the peace and quiet, but over the years Lorene said she has developed a love-hate relationship with the bayou. She still enjoys the fishing, but sometimes it is too quiet.

“We can sometimes go there and not see anyone from middle of the day on Friday until we come back to town on Sunday afternoon,” she said. “I’m more of a people person.”

When they are in Natchez, the Kluttses have their routine down pat. He’s up by 5 a.m., while she sleeps in.

“I don’t get out of bed until 6,” she said. “But I think I could sleep until 9.”

Then they are off for swimming at the Natchez Senior Citizen Center. After an hour in the pool, the couple returns home for breakfast and spends the rest of the day entertaining their 3-year-old Cavalier King Charles spaniel Greta.

While Lorene is happy spending her day watching the birds with Greta, Paul can be found on the computer checking his e-mail. He corresponds frequently with his children through e-mail — a hobby Lorene has no interest in.

“If they want to talk to me they can get on the telephone,” she said. “I’m old fashioned.”

After 70 years of marriage, the Kluttses have learned to live with their differences, but Lorene said there is one thing Paul has always complied with.

“Do whatever your wife tells you,” she said. “That’s the secret.”

Paul didn’t argue with that assessment.

“I’d say that’s about right, but I’d rather say ‘cherish your wife,’” he said.