Incredible series of coincidences that forged a four-decade friendship

A chance meeting on a bus got two couples talking. What followed was quite incredible and a beautiful friendship between two families was formed that is still going strong today.

Robert and Julie Fento with Pat and Rita Sganga at Leura in 2007. A remarkable coincidence made them friends for life.

When Pat Sganga got on the courtesy bus taking he and his new bride Rita to the airport for their honeymoon, he thought a fellow passenger looked familiar.

“Mate, did you go to Patrician Brothers at Fairfield,” he asked.

It was February 21, 1982, and the man on the bus was Robert Fenato and he had in fact attended Patrician Brothers where the boys had been a year apart. But eerily, the coincidences did not end there. They were only just beginning to reveal themselves.

So, too, was an extraordinary friendship that this year clocked up its 40th anniversary, celebrating four decades of shared memories and milestones.

But first, let’s get back on that airport bus. Robert was also travelling with his new bride Julie and they were on their way to start their honeymoon. They, like Pat and Rita, had married the day before.

Chatting, they soon discovered both couples had exchanged vows at the same church – St Benedict’s Catholic Church in Smithfield – and just an hour apart.

“Robert and Julie were booked in for four o’clock, but the priest they booked through didn’t pencil them in, so we actually took that timeslot as well,” Rita explains. “When they found out that someone had taken the four o’clock slot, they had to go in for three o’clock.

“But then we discovered all the other coincidences, and we realised just how much we had in common.”

Not only had both couples spent their wedding night at the Hilton Hotel and boarded the same courtesy bus to the airport, they were booked to travel on the plane to the same honeymoon destination, Hayman Island.

Over their week on the island, the couples spent every day together, eating, hiking and forming a fast friendship. And while they bonded over their recent nuptials, they were to discover even more startling coincidences.

Robert and Julie Fenato were married on the same day in 1982, at St Benedict’s Catholic Church Smithfield.

“After we had our honeymoon, we looked at each other’s wedding albums and we saw Julie and I had worn exactly the same dress with a different veil. And, we had both bought it from Park Avenue Bridal in Parramatta,” Rita laughs. “And then we spoke about our girls’ night. Back then, you didn’t have much of a hen’s night, you just went out to a restaurant. I went to Chinese Mandarin Palace in Fairfield, which was a big thing back in the day.

“And Julie said, ‘I had my girls’ night out there too’ and we just couldn’t believe it.

“It was amazing. It was just inevitable that we ended up being friends because we just clicked closer than brothers and sisters.”

It could have ended there, as so many holiday friendships do despite the best of intentions. But over the next 40 years Pat and Rita and Robert and Julie never let their bond falter, spending every anniversary together apart from their first, because Julie was in hospital having had the couple’s first child the day before.

Pat and Rita Sganga with Robert and Julie Fento on their honeymoon in Hayman Island in 1982

“We found out they lived at Rossmore, which was only 20 minutes from us at Wetherill Park,” Rita says. “Julie fell pregnant after the first year and had her son, but after that we had anniversaries together, weekends away, we’ve done Queensland together, we’ve done Melbourne together, and on our anniversary we always spend a day in town and see a show or go to the opera or the theatre and just make that weekend a special weekend.”

For Julie, Robert and Pat’s 60th birthdays just before Covid in 2019, they took a cruise together from Budapest to Amsterdam, just one of many special occasions spent together.

“We’ve had kids together, and now our kids are having children, so we’re grandparents together,” Rita says. “Their 18ths, 21sts, all milestones were all done together. Our family knows that if we have a get-together, Robert and Julie are always there.”

Pat and Rita were high school sweethearts and have three sons and three grandchildren, while Robert and Julie, who met at Liverpool TAFE, have two sons, a daughter and a granddaughter.

One of Rita’s sons followed in their footsteps and got married in St Benedict’s as did one of Julie’s sons, continuing the special tradition.

“One of my sons had his daughter christened at the church too,” Rita says.

“Julie and I were both strong, independent women, and the boys just got along so well from the very start. Julie and I have also been going to the same aerobics class for years. We go every Tuesday and we always have coffee or lunch afterwards.”

Robert and Julie Fento and Pat and Rita Sganga in Canberra in 2007

Pat ran a photography studio, retiring 10 years ago, while Rita worked for Westpac for 32 years, and is also retired. Now 62, Robert runs his own concreting business, and Julie, a bookkeeper, does volunteer bookkeeping for the local church.

“The way we met and all the similarities between us it’s just so incredible, and it created such a beautiful friendship,” Julie tells Sydney Weekend.

“They are our best friends.

“I actually remember on our wedding day. We were taking photos outside the church because it’s got pretty stained glass windows, and one of my sisters-in-law said to me, ‘The bride that’s getting married now is wearing the same dress as you’.

“I mean, what are the chances?

“And then when we met in the bus, we just couldn’t believe it.

“All of it.

“As soon as we met, we felt like we’d known them forever.”