Disney World Photo Captures Couple Together 15 Years Before They Met

[Ian]

Thought this was cute enough to share

30 years ago, this family photo at Disney World captured a woman's husband in the background long before they met.

No one knows better than Alex and Donna Voutsinas that it’s a small world after all.

Thirty years ago, when they lived in separate countries long before they met and married, a family shot of little Donna at Walt Disney World captured Alex in a stroller in the background.
“It just blew our minds when we realized,” Alex Voutsinas, a 32-year-old transplanted Montrealer told the Star Thursday from south Florida.

That fateful realization came just one week before their wedding eight years ago. Alex and Donna had been going through old family snapshots. There, in the blurry background of a picture of 5-year-old Donna was 3-year-old Alex being pushed down Main Street at the same moment in 1980 by his father. The senior Voutsinas’s distinctive jet-black hair with its white tuft caught his eye.

“My mother pulled out albums from the same trip. My dad is wearing exactly the same outfit.”

Other pictures from that trip showed Alex on his dad’s shoulders. The boy in the background of Donna’s picture and the boy in those pictures were the same.

A blow-up of the famous frame hangs on their living room wall in Boynton Beach, Fla., but Alex’s mother keeps the original in a safe.
“It’s like gold to her.”

It wasn’t until the couple joined Facebook recently and posted the picture that the world got wind of the staggering twist of fate with which they’d entertained family and friends for years.

Alex, who is a dual Canadian-U.S. citizen, and his family of hoteliers had moved to Florida when he was 10.

He and Donna met 15 years ago when they worked at the same hotel in Boca Raton shortly after she’d moved south from Long Island, N.Y.

They dated for six years, married and had three sons, who they take to Disney World regularly.
“We’ve taken pictures of the kids,” he said, “and they say they’re looking for their future wives in the background.”

[TinkerbellT421]

That is seriously awesome!!! thanks for sharing!

[dobby2010]

What a fun story!

[PirateLover]

I love this story, but it was originally from 2 or 3 years ago! All the sudden I'm seeing it everywhere again, but it's cool because it's such an adorable story. "it's a small world after all!"

[Aurora]

I love this story, but it was originally from 2 or 3 years ago! All the sudden I'm seeing it everywhere again, but it's cool because it's such an adorable story. "it's a small world after all!"

Yeah, I thought it was yet another couple at first! But you gotta wonder, with all those pics and videos being taken, how many people might get together and never know they had already been in the same place at the same time!

[kakn7294]

I've heard this before but it's an awesome story. Thanks for sharing it!

[VWL Mom]

Very cute story

[mgmnut]

Great Story, what are the odds?

[disney obsessed]

Its a small, small world.

[MyDisneyworld]

Disney World really is where the magic happens.

[ibelieveindisneymagic]

I always love hearing this story ... and it does make me wonder about all of the people who end up in my pictures.

A number of years ago, I was at a conference and starting chatting to the person next to me. After a while we realized that we grew up in the same area of the city, and even went to the same school in Kindergarden. Funny enough, when I next went to my Mom's, I pulled out the photos, and she had been at my 5th birthday party!

It really is a small world!

[MOJoe]

Great story. But i imagine this type of thing happens more often than people realize.

Just 2 weeks ago, while in line inside the Haunted Mansion, my wife and i litterally bumped into a family that attends church with us. Neither of us knew the other family was in WDW.
I know i am not relaying a particularly unique experience. Because this is not the first time we have bumped into people from home while at Disney. So if this happens, then the odds can only increase if you add to the equation, people you have known or will know.

The staggering twist of fate in my opinion, is that they figured it out.

[The Horned King]

That is amazing!

[Ian]

It's funny how often stuff like this happens ...

WARNING! CASTLE STAY REFERENCE UPCOMING!

Right after we returned from our stay where we won the castle suite we were walking down the hall of my daughter's school and overheard someone saying, "And then they told us that we were going to get to stay overnight in Cinderella's Castle can you believe that???"

Of course we stopped and were like, "WHAT??"

Turns out one of the teacher's at DD's school won the stay like a week before we did. I thought that was crazy someone so close by won it as well!

[Patricia]

Great story! I liked Ian's story too, even though it was a castle thing. Again.

I have been in the parks and had people ask if I have a daycare in Kelowna? Seems odd to be in the same place at the same time, so far from home. WDW is huge what are the odds?

[TinkerbellT421]

It's funny how often stuff like this happens ...

WARNING! CASTLE STAY REFERENCE UPCOMING!

Right after we returned from our stay where we won the castle suite we were walking down the hall of my daughter's school and overheard someone saying, "And then they told us that we were going to get to stay overnight in Cinderella's Castle can you believe that???"

Of course we stopped and were like, "WHAT??"

Turns out one of the teacher's at DD's school won the stay like a week before we did. I thought that was crazy someone so close by won it as well!

**runs over to Ian's castle stay mention thread and records: mention #8,576,231**

[SandmanGStefani24]

lol Splash mtn captured me and my ex fiancee in 1995, does that count as news?



i don't hold it against WDW..

[princessgirls]

LOVE this kind of story!!!

Thanks for sharing!!!

Julie

[Stu29573]

I ran into myself once. Strange situation with a time machine...

Ok, I made that up...

[MarkC]

Similar story here. 5 of us went on a trip to see Nebraska play Miami in the Orange Bowl on January 1st, 1995. One of my friends (Bryce) was seated next to a girl at the game and talked to her. Now, this was before cell phones, etc. so once the game was over, we go celebrate and they never see each other again.

Fast forward a few years. Bryce is now married and looking at photos and is looking at some from the trip and the game. The woman he is sitting next to at that game is now his wife. Niether one of them had any idea until they saw the photos. Crazy story.

We were just at WDW in January and saw two friends of ours from church as well. Neither of us had any idea we were there. That's happened a few times but when you are from Nebraska and not local the odds are a lot longer.