When Athanasia Arkalis recently revisited a video from her first solo European trip, she had no idea it would reveal a moment that quietly changed her life. Filmed in 2014 as she prepared to fly home to Australia, the footage captured a young Greek man waiting in the background at the airport, a stranger she wouldn’t meet for years, and the man who would eventually become her husband.
“At the time I watched that video, I was sitting with my boyfriend and had no idea the person I would one day marry was standing right there in the frame,” Arkalis tells PEOPLE. The trip itself was deeply meaningful. It was her first time in Europe and Greece, a country closely tied to her heritage, and she later wanted to share those memories with Andreas, who would become her partner years later.
By the time they watched the video together, Arkalis already knew they might have unknowingly shared the same flight back to Australia, a coincidence they had casually acknowledged while dating. But it wasn’t until the final moments of the clip, filmed inside the airport, that she noticed him clearly on screen, waiting to board.
The discovery felt surreal. Arkalis shared the moment on TikTok, where it quickly went viral. “On August 31, 2014, I made this video leaving my three-month Europe trip, not knowing that 11 years later on the same day, I would marry the Greek stranger in the back of my video,” she wrote, framing the moment like a modern fairytale.
At 21, Arkalis had little more than a desire to see the world. She funded the trip by working three jobs in retail and hospitality, initially planning to travel for two months before extending the journey to three. In hindsight, that spontaneous decision feels pivotal. “If I didn’t extend it, I may have never been on the same plane as him,” she says.
Still, their story didn’t unfold in some romantic travel encounter. Years later, Arkalis met a man during that 2014 trip in her grandfather’s hometown. When he later moved to Melbourne, they stayed in touch. That same friend eventually met Andreas on a construction site, bonding over shared Greek roots and music. He repeatedly suggested that Arkalis meet Andreas, believing they’d get along not romantically, just naturally.
At the time, Arkalis was in a long-term relationship and wasn’t looking for anything more. But when that relationship ended, she says something shifted immediately. “As soon as it was over, I felt this instant pull toward Andreas. It was like I just knew,” she says. Their connection grew quickly, and five years after her original trip, they finally realized they had unknowingly crossed paths in that airport years earlier.
When Andreas discovered he had appeared in the old video, his reaction was intense. “He had goosebumps and was honestly freaked out,” Arkalis recalls. The moment felt so overwhelming that he left her house shortly after. The next day, he called to say he had told his mother and friends back in Greece, all equally stunned by the coincidence.
As Arkalis’s TikTok continued to gain traction, viewers around the world responded with awe, hope and skepticism. Many commented that they wished for a fate like hers, while others questioned whether such a coincidence could really be real. “With dating apps being how most people meet now, it almost feels unreal,” she says.
For Arkalis, the experience strengthened her belief in destiny. “I really feel like everyone’s path is written, and this happening to me cemented that,” she says. After hearing the phrase “invisible string theory” on TikTok, she felt it perfectly described her story, two people living in different countries for decades, briefly crossing paths without knowing it, and finding each other at exactly the right time.
“So many small things had to happen for us to meet,” she says. “I truly believe our choices matter, but I also believe some things are meant to be. Our future was already written, we just didn’t know it yet.”
