Gold Coast couples tell their cute love stories to the Bulletin
FATE, fairytale or first sight, in a Paris theatre or at Southport Sharks, Gold Coast couples take us back to where their love story started.
Lifestyle
Don't miss out on the headlines from Lifestyle. Followed categories will be added to My News.
FATE, fairytale or first sight, in a Paris theatre or at Southport Sharks, local couples take us back to where their love story started.
Emma & Seb Davies
“My girlfriend Charlie was going to watch her friend play a game of football at Burleigh Bears and heading out after. She was begging me to go with her — I didn’t like watching football, but I thought it would be fun. I joined her and have been thankful ever since. After the game, Charlie’s friend Travis remembered that his mobile phone was in a guy called Sebastian’s footy bag. He called his phone from Charlie’s and Seb came over to hand the phone to Travis. We shook hands and introduced ourselves and all I kept thinking was ‘Wow, what a babe’. He was so shy and well-mannered. I thought that would have been the end of it, but two hours later we were heading out. We didn’t really talk much until we ended up sitting next to each other later in the evening. At the end of the night we said our goodbyes, he kissed me on the cheek and said ‘I would like to see you tomorrow night…’. Within six months we were engaged (I was 19, he was 22), two years later married and now married for three years. We are still the absolute best of friends and we couldn’t imagine our lives without each other.” - Emma
Emily Jade O’Keeffe & Gerard Murtagh
“We very briefly met at a fundraising lunch 13 years ago at the Southport Sharks (luckily I was single and totally cool with it). He bid on me, but I was won by someone else. He came up to say hi, but it was only a very short conversation as I was getting to know the gentlemen who had won the date. He then rang me on-air the next day to ask me to dinner, but I declined. A few weeks later, on Melbourne Cup day, I walked into the Marble Bar in Southport with some girlfriends and he came straight up to me and reintroduced himself. I was a bit tipsy and in a great mood, so we ended up having dinner at a nearby Indian restaurant. Over dinner we discovered that we lived one street away from each other and that I walked past his house nearly every day. It made dating and then moving in with each other very convenient. I knew about a week in to our love affair that he was the one I wanted to marry. He told his friends at the table at that first charity lunch that I was the girl he was going to marry, and he did.” - Emily Jade
Spida & Sheree Everitt
We met at the opening of my nightclub, The Temple, in Melbourne. Sheree had been in Melbourne on business ... I had seen her earlier in the day walking past and had stopped her and invited her to the opening. She politely turned me down. I was shocked. Not one to take no for an answer, I decided to track her down at her hotel, which was next door. Being who I was at the time, the concierge let me in. I found her room number and knocked on her hotel door — when she opened it I had the brilliant one-liner of, “are you going to put up a fight?”. She laughed and said, “I have no idea who you are, but you are obviously fun!”. With extreme confidence, I then proceeded to walk into her room, threw open her wardrobe and grabbed out a little black number (that she still has to this day). Because I was busy, I propped her up at the bar and left her to it. Later that night she asked who was paying her bar tab and I said, “I own this place”. She replied with a grin, “you want a medal for that?”. She is super feisty and it wasn’t an easy charm, but it felt like we had known each other our entire life. And the rest they say is 15 years of history, pure love and good times. — Spida
Liz Cantor & Ryan Lysaught
“I went down to Sydney to run the City to Surf with my best friend Kara and following it she dragged me to a friend of hers’ place in Bondi for a barbecue. That friend was Ryan!” - Liz
Fiona Edwards Bassingthwaighte & Andrew Bassingthwaighte
“We actually met in Sydney when I was living there. We both went to school on the Gold Coast and had mutual friends, however, had never properly met. The timing was all right when we first got together. I was totally taken by his rugged, country boy charms and when I went out to the property fell in love with him riding a bucking horse. He stuck to the saddle like glue! It was an unlikely match — city girl and country boy — but we knew we had something special and the rest is history.” - Fiona
Christine & John Broadway
“We met in Paris where I’m born and bred. My husband was working at Le Lido in Paris, one of the main attractions there, and he was pretty attractive too. I was doing little dancing things in the holidays. We met one day when we were going to a gala demonstration. The first moment I saw him I was in love. He was like a Prince Charming, he was absolutely gorgeous — he’s still gorgeous. But I was too young, I was only 17 and he was 33, but he asked ‘Would you come to a movie?’ I didn’t know what a movie was — I didn’t speak English. I thought it was a walk.
But then his contract finished and he had to go back to Australia. We wrote to each other for 18 months then he came back and we got married in Paris. We met July 14, 1966 and got married September 13, 1969.” - Christine
Nicky Black & Mikey Hill
“I wasn’t looking for love, that’s for sure. I lived in Christchurch with my three children and their father passed away on December 15, 1996. He was only 33. I had huge support over there but some friends of mine moved over to Australia and I thought it’s crazy but let’s move over as well. About six months after I moved, a friend I’d met invited me to karaoke and it became my one night out a week. That’s where I met Mikey. Apparently I was quite rude, but I wasn’t interested in meeting anyone let alone getting married. Six months later on Valentine’s Day, I bumped into Mikey again at karaoke. I was being chatted up at the bar by someone I couldn’t get away from. I turned around and there was Mikey, I mouthed to him to save me. He was just lovely, approachable, friendly, interested in me and my family. I said I come as a package deal, you don’t want to take me on. He said if I’m with you, your family is with me as well. About six months later we got engaged — he proposed mid-song during karaoke — and we got married on Valentine’s Day in 2004. We’ve been together 15 years. It’s funny, it always happens when you’re not looking. I say don’t hunt for love, don’t look, it’ll just happen.” - Nicky
Chris Katen & Krista Grono
“I got a text off a mate of mine that I actually hadn’t spoken to for a couple of years. Out of the blue he said ‘Hey, can I set you up with a girl?’ I’m into long-distance running and apparently she was too, so he thought we’d be a good match. I was sceptical but sent her a message and we organised to go to lunch that Sunday. We went to Lola’s, sat down and just started talking. I think after the fifth time the waitress tried to take our order she just gave up. It took us at least an hour and a half to even look at the menu. We talked every day after that. We ended up competing in running events together and the marathon. She’s just one of the happiest, friendliest most caring people I’ve ever met. I proposed to her at the top of a mountain in Maleney Easter last year and in April we’ll be married.” - Chris
Nick Atkins & Jessie Jones
“I remember the day I met Jessie. I’d just come home to Venice Beach from a filming assignment and was met by a house party I had no idea was being thrown by my awesome room mates. It was wonderful to be introduced to one of my good friends’ new girlfriends whom he’d just met in Newport Beach and decided to bring. Her name was Jessie. I would tell my ‘good friend’ later that night that I would steal her off him sometime in the future — jokingly but sort of not joking. After that weekend I stalked her online, like all honest guys do, and reached out a couple of days later. I was frothing, probably too much to be perfectly honest considering our status’ both currently read “in a relationship”. It would be 12 months of random messages and a few bump-ins to one another in LA before I had my 33rd birthday party. I invited her to the party, which was not unusual because I had literally invited her to every single thing I did for the past 12 months. By then I was single and I felt I had nothing to lose by putting it out there and saying, ‘look you never come to anything I invite you to but I’ll do it anyway knowing you won’t come. Happy birthday to me.’ The guilt trip worked. Next thing I know, Jessie is at my front door wearing a long stripy dress and grinning nervously. We have been inseparable ever since.” - Nick
Victoria & Nathan Peterson
We met at a friends birthday in 2007 at the Surfers Paradise Surf Club. Strangely enough, we had a lot of mutual friends in common. I knew his best friend, his flatmate, his school friends and he knew my friends as well. We’ve since discovered that we had been at a lot of the same parties throughout high school and the years after, yet our paths had never crossed until this particular party. He caught my eye as he was good looking, tall and had something about him. Turns out I caught his eye also and he asked one of our friends who I was. He found out that I owned a classic car, a 1965 Ford Falcon. He saw that as his way in to start a conversation with me. He came up to me with a picture of a stunning Gold XP and told me he heard that I had an XP. I was impressed, but it turns out it was just a ploy to strike up a conversation. He was quick-witted and smart with an odd-ish sense of fashion that intrigued me. It’s 10 years later and he still has an odd-ish sense of fashion, and I’m still disappointed that he didn’t own that gold XP. Despite that, we’ve been married for two years, had our engagement party at the Surfers Paradise Surf Club and we’re expecting our first baby in August this year.” - Victoria
‘Saved me over $1000’: Simple trick to save thousands
Forget about how many shopping days until Christmas, it’s time to start saving for summer holidays … and it might not be as tough as you think
Tinny rat tales: How champ keeps cheating death
Despite multiple near-death crashes in a 50-year powerboat racing career, the Gold Coast’s ‘sorcerer of screws’ just can’t keep out of the water. Read his story