The Qantas 'I still call Australia home' ad can be a tearjerker at the best of times but how's this for a romantic twist: two of the children cast in the ad just got engaged.
Ell and Paul were both part of the iconic choir scene at Uluru, filmed in the late 90's when they were kids, but their lives were brought back together through MySpace.
When it came time for Paul to pop the question, he made up an elaborate plan to get her back to the rock without raising her suspicions.
Congratulations to these crazy kids and you can read Ell's full post below.
Ell - Monday the 9th of May was the best day of my entire life.
The story begins 16 years ago as little choir kids. We were in Uluru filming for the Iconic 1999 Qantas ad where along with 100 other children we were placed right in front of the rock to sing "I still call Australia home". Paul stood to my right and in between takes we would chat and joke around. One of the things I remember most is Paul being this shy, smily kid that looked away as he giggled at my (probably not funny) jokes. We saw each other a few times after at choir events but being 9 year olds in an age where there was no Instagram, Facebook or mobile phones, it didn't even cross our minds to exchange details.
Fast forward to High school we reconnected again through mutual friends (thank you MySpace top 8) and Paul was back in my life.
After having many connections through school and uni, we were constantly drawn back to each other. Not too long after, our friendship turned into mutual crushes and I soon realized that what we had was better than the best kind of love.
We had often daydreamed of going back to Uluru to reminisce about our first day together. Only four weeks ago I got a phone call from Qantas saying that they had heard our story and wanted us to travel to Uluru to view their event called the Field of light as part of a new documentary for channel 9. WHAT?! This was the most random, exciting, crazy call but naturally we jumped at the amazing opportunity.
Qantas flew us in business class to central Australia where we were filmed arriving and exploring around one of the most incredible places on earth. We stopped at sunset at the most breathtaking spot near Uluru and as we were being interviewed Paul confessed that we were not actually there to view the field of light at all. We were there because he needed a way to get me back to the special place we had met 16 years ago. He had enlisted the help of Qantas and channel 9 to bring me back without knowing what was really going on at all!
Whilst the cameras were rolling he got down on one knee and fought back (badly fought back) tears to ask me to MARRY HIM AND I SAID "OF COURSE!!!"