For more than 60 years, Bill and Aileen Turnbull believed the video of the wedding day was gone. The couple who got married at Mastrick Church in Aberdeen, Scotland, on Aug. 5, 1967, had watched the video from that day once, before it disappeared.

After borrowing a projector from a friend to watch the film, Bill and Aileen unknowingly returned it with the footage still inside. Life moved on, and by 1981, the couple had relocated to Brisbane, Australia, with their three children. The pair said they had searched repeatedly to find the lost footage, but kept coming up empty. Over time, the pair said they had to put the missing video “out of their minds.”

We looked at it once, after that we couldn’t find it and didn’t know what happened to it,” she said.

But that all changed when during the recent spring, Aileen stumbled upon a photograph from their wedding on Facebook. She had only been a member of a Mastrick group for five minutes when she saw a photo of her and Bill leaving the church. It was shared by a man named Terry Cheyne.

Terry Cheyne’s Facebook post.

Cheyne, a former Royal Navy member from Aberdeen, had been sorting through old film reels that had been stored by his uncle for years. “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 said. “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.”

Immediately, Cheyne posted a still from the footage to a local Facebook page, hoping someone could identify the mystery couple. Six months went by with no response. However, when his post was shared in the Mastrick group, where a shocked Aileen had found it.

“I was absolutely amazed, I couldn’t believe it,” she said. She immediately showed Bill, who was sitting with her at the time, and said, “There’s our wedding photograph.”

The couple quickly realized how their footage had ended up with Cheyne. It turned out that the friend they had borrowed the projector from in 1967 was none other than Cheyne’s uncle. The wedding tape had likely gotten mixed up with Cheyne’s Navy footage, and it wasn’t until recently that it resurfaced.

Bill and Aileen Turnbull on their wedding day. Photo courtesy of the Turnbulls

Cheyne, who had become determined to solve the mystery, said he was thrilled to reunite the Turnbulls with their long-lost wedding video. He plans to meet with the couple the next time they visit Aberdeen, something Bill and Aileen are looking forward to. “We both can’t thank him enough,” she said. “He’s put a lot of thought into trying to track us down, we’re very appreciative of that,” Bill added.

The Turnbulls are still in awe of the footage, calling it “surreal” to see their younger selves and recognize friends and family members, many of whom have since passed away. After decades of wondering, they can now relive their special day and are excited to meet the man who helped bring their memories back to life. “To look back and see these people was just absolutely amazing — I still can’t believe it really,” Aileen said.

Sources: People | Press & Journal