Alex Bradsell & Michael Rubertone Are Wed

Nov 1

Love is an open door

Photos: Daylin Lavoy

Alex Bradsell and Michael Rubertone were married on May 5, 2023, in front of about 150 of their friends and families, and Alex will take the Rubertone surname.

Alex is the daughter of Bill and Diane Bradsell, and grew up in Bedford and attended Fox Lane. Her dad, who is a leading contractor in the area, had hand-fashioned a pair of doors with the words “Love Is An Open Door” inscribed on the lintel for Alex’s sister, Lindsay, when she was married in 2021, and Alex and Michael walked through the same door to make their entrance. Lindsay and Alex’s two other sisters, Charlotte and Hannah, shared the Maid of Honor duties, and even wrote new words to the song Love Is An Open Door which played as Alex and Michael’s party began. Michael had his brother, Matt, and a best friend, Mike, as Best Men.

Alex and Michael met at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Alex took a job at Disney when her mom, who had always wanted to work for Disney, suggested it would be a great place to work when she was making a job change after college at SUNY Cortland. Michael’s mom had actually worked for Disney Vacation Club and Michael, who grew up in Long Island and went to Fairfield University and had visited Disney World a bunch of times when he was a kid, had long intended to work for Disney. With 75,000 employees, Alex and Michael crossed paths while both working Guest Relations at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and Alex recalls, “We worked together for about seven months and Michael was my mentor at Disney, but then he became a Guest Experience Manager at Sunset Boulevard operations, and I transferred to a position as technical support on a team known as the Avengers. …That’s when we started a friendship outside of work, and our first date wasn’t until a few months later when we were both up in New York for different celebrations during the Summer of 2021. I brought Michael to my grandmother’s 80th birthday dinner... so I guess you could say our first date was with my whole family. And then Michael invited me to be his ‘Plus One’ at his best friend’s wedding. …We moved-in together in December, and Michael proposed to me on July 4, 2022, at a house in Milford, Connecticut that’s been in my family for a half-century.”

I feel like we had magical stardust sprinkled on us,Michael Rubertone

“I feel like we had magical stardust sprinkled on us,” Michael exalts. “We may never have met if it weren’t for Disney, but we have so much in common. We’re both what’s called ‘Disney Adults’ - we love the fundamentals of the Disney brand and experience, but more than that we’re young at heart and both filled with kindness and curiosity! We share a devotion to musical theater. I’m one of five siblings, and Alex is one of four. Our biggest differences are that my favorite Disney character is Stitch and Alex’s is Dumbo, and I’m a Met fan while Alex roots for the Yankees!”

“Michael really did most of the planning,” Alex reports. “We had a fabulous rehearsal dinner at an adorable restaurant attached to an art museum in Mount Dora, Florida, and then had the wedding at a charming farmhouse on 40 acres in Astatula, Florida, called Cypress Creek Farmhouse, with cows, donkeys and goats - that the guests fed during the cocktail hour - roaming the property. The DJ played an instrumental blend of Disney tunes during cocktail hour; we had a fake fight with light sabers during the party; the cake was beautiful on one side and cut open on the other to reveal images of Michael’s favorite things: Star Wars, Phantom of the Opera, and the Mets, and our final song was Come What May from Moulin Rouge - and shared an overwhelmingly joyful moment with the people we both love. Then we went to Hawaii for our honeymoon; first to Maui and then to the Aulani Disney Resort in Oahu; where it was a pleasure to feel the Disney magic - even without the theme park.”