Many couples visit a Disney theme park for a date, but the Toronto Star posted one of the strangest Disney love stories I have ever heard. About 30 years ago, when they lived in separate countries, long before they met and married, a family shot of little Donna Voutsinas at Walt Disney World also happened to catch then 3-year-old Alex Voutsinas in a stroller in the background.
The couple stumbled onto the photo eight years ago, a week before their wedding, when they were looking through some old family photos. In the blurry background of a picture with Mr. Smee and 5-year-old Donna was Alex being pushed down Main Street his father. Alex recognized him in the background because of his distinctive black hair with a tuft of white.
Disney’s theme parks are among the most photographed places in the world. If you have ever set foot in the parks, it is likely that you are in the background of hundreds of random family’s vacation photos. When I worked at Disneyland, I used to pick up a lot of shifts working crowd control for the parades. Years later, I made a friend in Florida who happened to have a vacation photo with me in the background. I have to wonder how many other photos of 17-year-old me are floating out there.
Disney’s executive John Lasseter once tried to crowd source a photo of himself working the Jungle Cruise in 1977. He offered a VIP tour of Cars Land as a bounty. I don’t think he was successful in his hunt, but the odds are good that there is a photo out there somewhere.
For the Voutsinas family, the chance photo is a treasured memory and now hangs in a frame on their living room wall. Of course, whenever the family visits Walt Disney World, the parents joke with their sons that their future partners might be walking right behind them.
Source: The Star
