A Highland accountant double-checked his figures after buying two lotto lucky dips with his fiancee – and discovered they had won more than half a million pounds.
Barry Loughrey and Ildi Kiss were delighted when they initially thought they had won £585 – enough to pay for a photographer at their summer wedding.
But when the numbers were examined again, the couple discovered they had won much, much more – £585,956 to be exact.
Mr Loughrey, 36, and 28-year-old Miss Kiss, a production administrator for Muir of Ord-based SGL Carbon Fiber , celebrated the early wedding present with champagne – and a kiss or two – yesterday at the Drumossie Hotel outside Inverness.
The couple revealed they had almost forgotten to buy their usual two lucky dip lines.
They had finished their shopping and left the Tesco in Tain on Saturday when they realised they had not bought their tickets and went back inside.
Mr Loughrey, who was wearing ripped jeans for the cheque presentation, said: “On Sunday when we saw we had matched the five numbers and the bonus ball we checked on my mobile phone what the prize would be. The connection was really poor so all we could see was £585.
“We thought ‘Great, that will pay for our wedding photographer’ and then I spotted there was a comma after it.
“We headed straight to my mum and dad’s to check on their computer and were in a state of shock when we saw there was not only a comma but another three zeroes.
“We kept double checking the numbers as no one could quite take it in.
“I’m so glad we went back into the shop when we forgot to buy our ticket.”
They matched five numbers and the bonus ball and shared in a bumper pay-out.
Saturday’s draw was a quadruple rollover of £13.6million but, with no one matching all six balls, the jackpot was shared between the 23 winners in the next prize tier.
The delighted couple have pledged not to “spend, spend, spend” as pools winner Viv Nicholson famously did in the early 1960s.
In fact, they have not bought anything with their winnings yet and do not plan to change the plans for their wedding in Miss Kiss’s home town in Hungary in the summer.
The only item definitely on their shopping list is a new car.
Mr Loughrey said they currently share a small Toyota Aygo, and he was considering an Audi or a Volkswagen Golf, but nothing at the luxury end of the market.
They plan to invest much of the money for the future, as well taking as more weekend breaks in Europe.
Mr Loughrey has already pencilled in the famous Oktoberfest beer festival in Munich as one destination.
He said: “We are going to be thrifty. We’re both very young and it’s such a large sum of money. It sets us up for life.
“But we have to continue working.”
He added that winning the money was “very surreal”.
He said: “It does not feel real. We keep thinking we are going to wake up and that it is a dream. It is very strange.”
Miss Kiss, who previously worked at Munlochy Post Office, said: “Both of our families are really happy for us.”
The accountant and his fiancee, who is from Kecskemet, south of Budapest, will wed at a winery on Lake Balaton in July. The couple have already planned all the details for their big day and friends and family are already booked to travel. They met in Aviemore about three years ago when Mr Loughrey was at a friend’s stag party. Miss Kiss was in the ski-ing village as part of her travels around Scotland.
Mr Loughrey said it was “love at first sight” and Miss Kiss has lived in the Highlands ever since. Mr Loughrey proposed at home last March while the couple enjoyed a glass of the Hungarian spirit, palinka.
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