World wants to know about Boynton couple's fairy tale beginnings at Disney 



Days before their wedding, Donna Voutsinas and fianc Alex were looking through
old family photos for their wedding video. Donna shared a picture of herself and
her siblings posing with Peter Pans Mr. Smee character on Main Street, U.S.A.
in the Magic Kingdom. Alex noticed a background character a man pushing a
child in a stroller. That man was his father. And the child in the stroller? Alex.
(Family photo)

By Carlos Frias

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

If Sleeping Beauty recounted over and over again how she met her prince in the woods "quite by accident," her dinner guests might roll their eyes and groan.

But unlike the love story in Sleeping Beauty, the story of Alex and Donna Voutsinas' meeting is a true Disney fairy tale worth retelling.

The Boynton Beach couple has been telling it to their friends for the eight years they've been married, but only now is it starting to spread beyond family lore - and across the world over the Internet.

A week before the Voutsinases were to be married in March 2002, they were sifting through old photos to create a slideshow for their reception when Donna held up a Polaroid of her at age 5. She and her two brothers were at the Magic Kingdom, posing with a Disney character. Her family had just moved to Florida from New York's Long Island and the 1980 trip was their first to Disney.

But Alex found something familiar in that picture, too. In the background, to the left, was a man he immediately recognized. It was his father, Tony, pushing a young boy in a stroller. A boy Alex thought looked too much like his own baby pictures.

Alex grabbed the photo and raced to his mother's house, where they sifted through hundreds of old photos until they came to a set from their trip to Disney in 1980. The family had been living in Montreal at the time, and it was also Alex's first visit to Disney . In all the photos, Tony and Alex, 3 at the time, are dressed just as they are in Donna's print.

Twenty-two years before they were married, Alex Voutsinas and Donna Balzano were captured in the same image at Disney World .

It's a small world, after all.

"I believe everybody crosses paths at one time or another, but to have it documented like we did just blew my mind," Alex said.

The story had been something to amuse visiting friends. But when a friend suggest Alex post the photo and story on Facebook on May 30, the fairy tale was sprinkled with pixie dust. One friend shared it with another, and then another.

Inside of a week, CNN.com had posted it on front page of its website. The story on Yahoo.com already has more than 3 million views. Calls came in from Canadian press, the BBC and the major network morning shows. CBS's The Early Show, NBC's Today Show and ABC's Good Morning America all are clamoring to be the first national outlet to have the kismet couple.

Good Morning America, whose parent company is Disney, hinted their meeting might make for the perfect fairy tale ending.

"We did this just for fun," Voutsinas said, "but if I can take my kids to Disney, I'm going to jump at the opportunity."

Alex and Donna didn't meet until 1995, when she took a job at the Voutsinas' Ramada Hotel franchise. They married, had three boys, and they love going to Disney still. But now, when they get home, they carefully study all the little girls in the background of their pictures.

"Maybe their future wives are in the background," Alex said. "You never know."