McALESTER, Oklahoma (AP) — Anti-death penalty advocate Lea Rodger says she is keenly aware of the realities facing her and Richard Glossip, who she married this week inside the Oklahoma State Penitentiary where he sits on death row.

Glossip, 59, already has narrowly escaped execution three times and could be the next man Oklahoma puts to death now that the state has lifted a nearly seven-year moratorium on executions put in place due to mishaps in his case and others.

Rodger, 32, a paralegal who has spent more than a decade advocating for an end to capital punishment, says that’s one of the reasons she didn’t want to waste time marrying her new husband.

“For Rich, surviving three execution attempts, possibly facing a fourth, the one thing he’s really taken away from that is: Don’t take anything for granted … really live in the moment,” Rodger told The Associated Press before they wed Tuesday in a small ceremony inside the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.

“I think both of us do a good job at that, and that’s why it was important to us that we do this now while we know we can make this commitment with each other,” said Rodger, of Lutz, Florida, who is now a law student.

In a statement provided to the AP, Glossip said: “After all I have been through, losing so much of my life and everyone in it, I have been blessed beyond all imagination.”

Although marriages of death row inmates don’t happen often, they aren’t completely unusual either, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. He said the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Loving v. Virginia, which prohibits bans on interracial marriages, has since been applied to people in prison.

“Marriage is among the fundamental personal rights that prisoners retain,” Dunham said.

Some of the most notorious inmates in the country have married after being imprisoned. Convicted serial killer Ted Bundy married his fiancee while on death row in Florida. Erik Menendez and his brother, Lyle Menendez, serving life sentences for murdering their parents in 1989 in their Beverly Hills mansion, both were married in prison. Richard Ramirez, the demonic serial killer known as the Night Stalker who left satanic signs at murder scenes and mutilated victims’ bodies during a reign of terror in the 1980s, wed while on death row in California.

In Oklahoma, marriage ceremonies for people who are incarcerated are conducted twice a year, in March and September. The inmate or fiancee is responsible for all costs associated with the marriage, including court fees and, if necessary, transportation costs if the county requires the couple to sign the county’s marriage record book. Oklahoma does not allow conjugal visits, even for newly married inmates, but Rodger said they were able to hold hands and kiss during Tuesday’s ceremony.