The actors who play Peter and Wendy in freeFall's Peter Pan are about to find out: Taylor Simmons (Peter) and Gabriella Guinta (Wendy) will start their happily ever after tomorrow with a wedding on the water at Bradenton's Pier 22.
The couple met at freeFall two and a half years ago; Simmons played Jack at the company's production of Into the Woods, and Gabriella watched him from the audience. Simmons had seen her dance at the Theatre Tampa Bay awards and asked for an introduction to her.
"We started talking after the show," she says. The rest? A fairytale, with a modern twist. freeFall cast Simmons in A Christmas Carol so instead of going back to Orange County, CA, he stayed in the 'Burg a few months longer, and their romance grew. When Carol ended, they continued their courtship as they both worked in different parts of the country.
On November 18 of last year, Simmons told her he wanted to go watch the sunrise, and they went to the grassy area by the St. Pete Pier. He asked her to close her eyes, and when she did, he gave her an acorn necklace (in Peter Pan, when Wendy asks for a kiss, Peter gives her an acorn as a symbol of a kiss; Simmons played Peter in the Peter Pan 360 National Tour, and Guinta accompanied him on part of the tour).
"Both of us have enjoyed the story of Peter Pan our whole life," she says.
Then he asked her to close her eyes again, and this time he placed a ring in her hand.
"Should I get down on one knee?" he asked her.
"Of course!" she said.
"We're able to do the show right up to the wedding and right after," Guinta says. They'll honeymoon in May, on a road trip that will take them hiking and camping in the Grand Canyon, Seattle, Utah and end in Yosemite which, Guinta points out, are much more pleasant to camp in May than in January.
After Peter Pan ends Jan. 29, they'll make the move to New York permanently.
Many of her bridal shower gifts, Guinta says, had a "happily ever after" theme, and as for her dress?
"I feel like Cinderella in it."
When they appear onstage, she says, she does get misty towards the end of the show every night. Michael Raabe wrote a new original song for this production, and towards the end they sing:
"As days and months and years go by with wonders to discover, one day you'll sing this lullaby as fathers and mothers/You'll tuck them in as dreams ascend into the great unknown, where they are free to roam/May they guide you home."
"We look at each other, and we say 'home,' every moment I want to burst into tears — knowing that Taylor us going to be my husband," she says. "I couldn't ask for anything more."
Peter Pan runs through January 29.
This article appears in Dec 29, 2016 – Jan 5, 2017.