Bride Left 'in Shock' After Unseen Video from Her 1960s Wedding Was Recently Found by Film Student: ‘Couldn’t Believe It’
A 24-year-old film student who found the video said, "Because it was someone's wedding video... I had to try and find the family"
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Stock Photo: 1960s weddingA grandmother has found a new way to reminisce on her nuptials more than 60 years ago after a previously undiscovered video of her wedding made its way back to her.
Beryl Davies, 79, told BBC that she was “in total shock” after being contacted about a video that depicted her marriage to her late ex-husband, Griff, in a village near Cardigan, Ceredigion in Wales, in October 1966.
"I was blown away by it all. I just couldn't believe it, that it's appeared after all these years," Davies told the outlet. "It could have been left undetected forever.”
Film student Martyn Forrester, 24, found the footage and purchased it while vacationing in the town where the couple had wed. He told BBC that he decided to digitize the film and find the people featured in it so that he could help give them back a piece of their history.
"This was purely out of curiosity. I had no intention of finding whatever was on that reel and sending it to someone,” Forrester said. "I was watching it, and I thought, this is a really nice film, but it has no value to me. It has more value to the people in the video.”
He added, "Because it was someone's wedding video that's so personal I had to try and find the family.”
Forrester posted the film on a Cardigan Facebook page to see if he could help reunite the footage with the family and was eventually successful. Someone put him in contact with Davies’ brother, and they worked together to get the film in front of the grandmother.
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Clips of the footage, which was posted online by BBC, showed the bride making her way into the chapel arm-in-arm with her father and her wedding party straightening out her dress. It also showed the bride and groom walking outside together after the ceremony was over.
Davies recalled to outlet that it was "quite a posh" wedding and "just a magical day," though she also noted it was bittersweet watching all her relatives who had since died. "I find it all very emotional seeing people who are no longer with us, you know, my sister, my parents, in-laws, uncles and aunts," she said.
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Though, she also noted the footage brought up a mystery of who recorded it, as she had "never, ever" seen any of it up until this point.
Forrester told BBC that he wished he "was there to see their reactions” when they first received the video “because that's so special to them." However, he finally got the chance to meet Davies over the phone during an appearance on BBC Radio Wales Breakfast, which made it "all the more real.”
Davies shared that she was “grateful” to the film student bringing back such an important piece of history to her. "This is a wonderful memory,” she said. “I'm so grateful to Martyn.”
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