Couple thought they met on a phone call — until her mom showed photos of their love story from 12 years ago

Heidi Savitt and Ed Savitt always thought their love story began at Newcastle University in 2011. She was studying economics and management, while he was focused on psychology and business. When Ed moved into his student accommodation, he couldn't figure out how to use the washing machine. He reached out to the previous tenant, and she was happy to help, reported BoredPanda.

That tenant happened to be Heidi, who was studying economics and management, and she was more than happy to walk him through it. A few weeks later, they bumped into each other again during a night out. Numbers were exchanged, their first date was at Pizza Express, and from then on, they were inseparable. Over time, their relationship deepened, and Ed proposed. To everyone who knew them, it seemed like a classic university love story, but that changed during dinner with Heidi’s parents.

In the middle of the conversation, her mother suddenly remembered that Heidi had once had a "holiday romance" with a boy named Ed during a family trip to Turkey when she was six years old. It seemed like nothing more than a funny coincidence, but curiosity got the better of her. A few days later, she went digging through boxes of family photos stored in the attic. Inside one album from 1997, she found the proof — pictures of Heidi standing next to a boy named Ed during that very trip to Bodrum, Turkey. Looking at the pictures now, there was no question that it was the same person her daughter was about to marry.

When Heidi saw the photos, she was so stunned she had to lie down for a moment! Ed’s family searched their own albums and found matching photos from the same vacation. There they were — Heidi and Ed — together at six years old, smiling on the beach, completely unaware that they’d meet again nearly two decades later. At the time, the two families didn’t know each other. Heidi’s family was from Sheffield, Ed’s from London. They had simply booked the same resort at the same time. As children naturally do, Heidi and Ed became fast friends during that holiday, inseparable for days — until the vacation ended and they went their separate ways.

Psychologists have long noted how even small, chance encounters can carry more weight than we realize. A study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships observed that brief, chance interactions often shape how relationships unfold in the future. It helps explain why a forgotten childhood connection, like Heidi and Ed's holiday friendship, might resurface years later with unexpected strength.

When they realized what fate had done, the couple began calling friends and family, sharing the unbelievable discovery. Heidi said that everyone was honestly surprised by all of this. Looking back on it, Heidi said, this was "love at second sight," adding, "This is the most extraordinary journey of my life." The rediscovered photos reframed everything they thought they knew about their love story. In the summer of 2016, Heidi and Ed married, and they now co-own a coffee shop in Southfields, London. They even returned to Bodrum, documented by Turkish Airlines, where they first met as children, and were amazed to find a mural of the two of them from that trip — a tribute to the kind of story that can only be written by time and coincidence.

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