- As confetti showered down on Aileen and her groom, Bill, they were thrilled to have a cinecamera capturing their special day
- Shortly after their nuptials, the pair tracked down a projector on which to watch the footage
- They had a ball reliving their big day after the fact
- Bill returned the projector to his mate but when others wanted to watch the wedding reel, it was nowhere to be found… and so their wedding mystery began
- Decades later, a stranger overseas posted a photo of Bill and Aileen’s big day on Facebook. He said he’d been trying to track down the newlyweds.
- Aileen Turnbull, from Mount Warren Park, Qld, shares how the stranger solved their wedding mystery after 57 years…
Stepping out of the church in my beautiful wedding dress, I smiled at the crowd.
“Congratulations,” cheered my friends, as they threw confetti over me and my handsome new husband, Bill.
“Stand over there,” instructed the wedding photographer.
Bill and I, both 20, stood on the stairs of the Mastrick Parish Church in Aberdeen, Scotland as the photographer snapped away at us
It was August 5, 1967.
Read more: Mum faked her own death so I turned detective to find her after 42 years
I wore a beautiful white satin dress that I’d seen in a shop window on my bus commute to my job at a department store.
My colleague Margaret’s husband, Gilbert, had a cinecamera, which creates a series of photos to produce moving pictures, and he took some footage of the wedding, too.
“Walk this way,” he instructed, so Bill and I faced his camera and smiled.
Afterwards, our guests went to a new restaurant in town for the reception.
It was a beautiful day.
Bill and I had met when we were 15 and both worked at a department store. I had a job in accounts and he was the lift operator.
We were engaged by 18 and married two years later.
After we got back from our honeymoon in Edinburgh, Margaret asked if we’d like to see the cine footage Gilbert had filmed.
“Oh, yes please!” I said.
“You’ll need a projector,” she said, handing me the cine reel.
One of Bill’s colleagues, Brian, had one and leant it to us.
Bill brought it home from work and set it up in our living room.
“Isn’t that lovely,” I sighed, reliving our wonderful day.
Not long afterwards, Brian asked for his projector back, so Bill packed it all up and gave it to him.
Some weeks later, my mum asked to see the footage.
I searched for the reel high and low.
“I can’t find it anywhere,” I said to Bill.
He asked Brian, but he said he didn’t have it.
Footage of our special day had disappeared. It was a complete wedding mystery.
I was sad, but we’d made a wedding album and had lots of lovely pictures framed, so I soon forgot about it.
In 1969, we had our twins Susan and Craig, and three years later our daughter Donna was born.
Then, in 1981, Bill was offered an opportunity to move to Australia for work.
My sister Rhonda and her family had already emigrated and loved it, so I jumped at the chance.
We settled in Brisbane.
I got a job on the switchboard at Griffith Uni and Bill headed up an electrical motor parts company.
As years passed, Bill and I became grandparents and both retired.
One afternoon in October 2024, I was sitting on the couch with my iPad. I don’t often check Facebook but for some reason this day I did, and something caught my eye.
There was a group for people who’d grown up in Mastrick, Scotland.
I joined the group and the first thing that came up was a wedding photo.
“Oh my goodness,” I cried, my hand covering my mouth in shock. “Bill, look at this, it’s us!”
“Who has our wedding photo?” he asked, confused.
“I don’t know,” I replied.
It’d been posted by a woman named Pamela.
The caption said that someone named Terry had posted on another Aberdeen group back in April about an old cine reel he’d discovered of a wedding held at Mastrick Parish Church.
He’d been going through some old navy reels and our wedding had come up.
He watched the footage but couldn’t recognise anyone in it.
So, he put up an appeal on social media.
Straightaway, I sent a message to Pamela.
That’s me in the photo, I wrote.
She instantly responded.
You need to contact Terry Cheyne, she said.
So I did.
He also responded immediately.
I’d given up hope of ever solving this wedding mystery! he wrote, obviously amazed.
He told me his uncle had kept all his old navy footage.
“Ask him what his uncle’s name was,” Bill said so I did.
It was Brian. That solved our wedding mystery!
Terry had kept boxes of his old cine reels in his attic and now that he was retired, his grandson had suggested he transfer them all onto DVD.
He’d done so, and discovered our lost wedding footage.
Would you like to see it? he asked.
Oh yes! I replied.
He sent it to us as an internet link.
Bill and I sat on the sofa and watched as our wedding from 57 years before came to life on the iPad screen.
It had no sound, but was in full colour.
It was so surreal. So many of our guests had since passed away. We’d often reminisced about them but to see our parents and Bill’s grandparents moving around was just incredible.
My flower girl, my niece Karen, then two, now 59, handed me a horseshoe for luck and you could see me lean down to kiss her.
“I’d forgotten about that,” I said to Bill in amazement.
Next day, our son Craig, 55, popped over to watch it with us. We’ve since sent the link to all our relatives, who think it’s wonderful.
We’re just so thankful to Terry for finding us and solving our wedding mystery.
Someone else might’ve thrown it away, but he decided to track us down.
We hope to visit Scotland soon and would love to meet up with Terry to thank him personally.
What a special gift it has been to be reunited with footage of that magical day after all this time.
