Woman Shocked After Stumbling Upon Her Lost 1967 Wedding Video on a Stranger's Facebook Page: 'Can't Believe It'
Terry Cheyne, who discovered the film, called the outcome "a very happy ending"
An Australian couple has been reunited with their missing wedding footage 57 years later thanks to one savvy Facebook user.
Aileen and Bill Turnbull, both 77, wed in Aberdeen, Scotland in 1967 at Mastrick Church, according to BBC Scotland.
The couple, who were filmed leaving the church by a colleague, borrowed a projector to watch the film after their ceremony. They returned the projector with the film accidentally still attached.
After moving to Brisbane in 1981 with their three children, the couple's missing wedding footage went "out of their minds," they told The Press and Journal in Scotland. Until this April when a man named Terry Cheyne came across the vintage film by chance.
As he was getting old film transferred to DVD in Aberdeen, Cheyne spotted the couple's wedding footage and shared the news — and a still of the video — to a Facebook page. The post, shared by The Press & Journal, noted that Cheyne discovered the footage wedding, and asked others if they recognized the couple.
Six months later, Aileen stumbled upon the image in a moment she called "absolutely amazing," per BBC Scotland.
As Aileen explained to the outlet, she was scrolling through Facebook when the photo appeared. That's when she turned to her longtime husband Bill, who was sitting with her at the time, and said "There's our wedding photograph."
"I messaged Terry and it just grew from there," she said. "His uncle was the guy we'd borrowed the projector from to see the film after the wedding, he worked with my husband. We gave back the projector, and unbeknown to us that film was still in the projector. We've only found that out now."
"We looked at it once, after that we couldn't find it and didn't know what happened to it," she added. "It must have got mixed up with something and it's only surfaced now. Then Terry decided to try and trace this couple."
Aileen told BBC Scotland, she could "still recognize everybody" all these years later in the "surreal" footage.
According to CBS Chicago, which notes that the youngest members of their wedding party are now in their 60s, Aileen had to "keep pausing" the footage "to look at people."
"To look back and see these people was just absolutely amazing — I still can't believe it really," she told BBC Scotland. "I was just saying to my neighbors, we've got our wedding album, and the majority of people in that have passed away. So seeing the film was just surreal. A few of them are still with us."
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Cheyne, formerly of the Royal Navy, told the outlet that he gave his reels to his uncle to keep them safe, before recovering all the footage when his uncle — the former colleague of Bill — decided to move. When he first saw the footage, he had "nobody to ask" who was in it, as he was the oldest person in his family and "everyone had passed away," he told The Press & Journal. Luckily, someone reposted his image in a Mastrick, Aberdeen Facebook group.
"I kept them in my loft for a long time. And then I decided I would transfer them onto DVD, because I didn't have a projector," he sad. "The first film that was on the DVD was a mysterious unknown film to me. It was clearly a wedding, in Mastrick Church. I watched it many times, I didn't know anybody."
The film finder told BBC Scotland that he hopes to one day meet up with the couple, calling the conclusion of the mystery wedding film ordeal "a very happy ending."
“He’s put a lot of thought into trying to track us down, we’re very appreciative of that,” Bill told The Press & Journal.
For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!
Read the original article on People.