Hilton Head residents Julie Toon Pawley and Bernie Timms tied the knot on Valentine's Day, 1999, at Palmetto Dunes. With them are, from left: Julie's daughter Caroline Pawley, the Rev. Doug Bowling, Julie's son Drew Pawley, and best man Marc McDougall. The couple met in a chat room on the Internet in 1997. Timms moved from England to Hilton Head to be with his bride. (Special to The Packet)

Lowcountry couple found love online
By ROBYN PASSANTE
Wedding Showcase editor

The Internet can help prospective brides find the perfect wedding gown, the perfect engagement ring, even the perfect shoes. But can it help find the perfect husband?

That's exactly what Hilton Head resident Julie Toon Pawley discovered online, much to her surpise and delight.

"I found my soulmate online," Toon Pawley said of husband Bernie Timms. "It's amazing."

After meeting in a chat room called 'Nice People Chat' in May 1997, Toon Pawley, owner of Toon Pawley Real Estate, and Timms, then a manager at a rubber molding plant in England, began a friendly pen-pal correspondence via e-mail.

"I had never met anyone from England, and he had never been to the United States," Toon Pawley said.

For the first few months, the two were strictly friends. They exchanged photos online, and Timms also began corresponding with Toon Pawley's children, Caroline, 10, and Drew, 8.

Then something clicked that changed everything.

"One day in August I asked him to describe what he thought a perfect day would be like and I remember wondering 'Who told him to write all that?' because I felt the exact same way," Toon Pawley said.

Soon after that, love blossomed.

"We just couldn't type fast enough," Timms remembered. "My typing speed did improve a lot."

Finally, they decided to meet. Timms planned a trip to Hilton Head for Labor Day weekend in 1997.

"Bernie actually left England the day they buried Princess Diana," Toon Pawley said. "It was really quite eery because as he was leaving Heathrow Airport, the airport observed two minutes of silence -- no planes took off or landed, all business stopped for those two minutes. It's hard to forget because that's the day we met."

When he landed in Atlanta, she was there to greet him with much anticipation -- and no apprehension.

"I really felt I already knew him," she said. "Both of us had represented ourselves very truthfully so there were no surprises."

Timms also ignored the skepticism from his friends in England.

"We knew quite a lot about each other," he said. "It's like that movie, 'You've Got Mail,' only much more intense."

After a perfect week together, Timms had to head home. But it wouldn't be long before 'home' would be Hilton Head.

"Once we knew where the relationship was going the decision was to get over here as quickly as possible," Timms said.

Timms visited again in October and December, and Toon Pawley made her first trip to England in February 1998.

"What a whirlwind trip. It was like taking a sip of water out of a firehose," she said. Besides sight-seeing in a foreign country, she met her fiance's family, including most of his eight siblings, parents and friends.

After a Fourth of July going away party given by Timms' friends and family, he moved to Hilton Head in July 1998 and began working with Toon Pawley in real estate.

The two planned an impromptu wedding at Palmetto Dunes and were married on Feb. 14, 1999.

"We threw it together in a week and it was amazing. A Valentine's Day wedding," Toon Pawley said.

Do they realize what odds they beat in finding their perfect match half a world away?

"It was divine intervention, it's just incredible," Toon Pawley said. "It was absolutely meant to be."