The annual Schoolies event on Queensland's Gold Coast is often portrayed as a week of drinking, random sex, drugs and violence from which nothing good comes.

The event — a week of celebration for students who have just completed Year 12 — started in the 1970s on the Gold Coast has spread to more than 10 locations throughout Australia although the Gold Coast is by far the biggest and the one that receives the most media attention.

On the Gold Coast around 25,000 to 30,000 17-year-olds invade the city staying in the array of high-rise unit blocks, spending the day on the beach, or in bed, and partying all night.

But the story of two teenagers proves that you can find love at Schoolies.

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It was a hot November in 1989, when 17-year-old John Appleyard and his friends went to the Gold Coast to celebrate the end of school.

The now 44-year-old never imagined he would find 'the one' at Schoolies.

"I just went up there for a good time and look what happened," he said.

John and his love met at a Burleigh Heads resort with a distinctive pool in the shape of a map of Australia.

"So I actually met Kylie up in the Northern Territory part," John said.

"Somewhere in Arnhem Land."

John and a mate saw Kylie and her friends swimming and plucked up the courage to go over and chat.

However young John was a bit on the shy side.

"Over the next couple of days two of my friends actually let Kylie know that I was interested," he said.

"So when I spoke to her again the ice was already broken."

Over the coming days John invited Kylie to a concert at Fisherman's Wharf, but she had other plans.

That could have been where their story ended, as John and his mates headed to a Surfers Paradise nightclub after the gig.

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"We'd been there about two minutes and I felt a tap on the shoulder," he said.

"I turned around and it was Kylie."

She invited him to dance and it was then the pair started their lifelong romance.

They married in 1995, returned to the hotel for their honeymoon, and now have three children.

John said he had never met another couple who met at Schoolies.

"I've never met anyone else who has met that way," he said.

"Everyone's always enthralled when I say we met at Schoolies Week."

In today's world of online dating and hook-up apps, such romance may be just a dream.

But John said who knows what could happen.

"Hopefully this might be someone's year," he said.

"They could end up as lucky as I am."