Inside Chicago Fire star Alberto Rosende’s ‘dream’ wedding to Tessa Mossey with a co-star reunion and vintage finds — exclusive

“It was Alberto’s call to get married in PEI,” said Tessa. Raised in Florida, and of Colombian and Cuban descent, Alberto hadn’t heard of the island until he met Tessa in 2016. “I wanted my family, who would have never otherwise had the opportunity, to be able to visit and understand why I fell in love. It really is a magical place.” 

The pair chose the 150-year-old Beaconsfield Historic House as the venue for their ceremony. Perched on the waterfront of Charlottetown Harbour, the venue is one of seven Museum and Heritage PEI sites and is a museum and event space.

“I wanted to source as many vintage pieces as I could throughout the wedding,” said Tessa, who visited LOHO Brides in West Hollywood. The bridal store was taking part in a trunk show of Prea James’ gowns, and as Tessa was walking out she decided to try on one more.

“It wasn’t even about what it looked like per se, but it felt so right,” she added of the dress, which is only now coming out in stores.

As part of her desire to keep things vintage and sustainable, Tessa also made her own silk tulle mantilla veil and pearl necklace.

“I had a really specific fabric in mind that I wasn’t able to find, so I sourced the fabric and did the whole thing,” said Tessa. “But it took a lot more time than I anticipated.  I did the bulk of the work in LA, then I brought it with me to PEI to finish there. One night, my mom came in and saw me hand stitching and instinctively started helping me. Then my aunt caught wind of it and came over, and started helping. We were working on that thing for so long that we were deliriously giggling the whole time.”

“It was such a good feeling to look around and feel such support from my mom and my aunt, to be willing to give up their nights doing this with me,” said Tessa. “I wouldn’t have been able to finish it in time without them, and their literal stitches are a part of my veil now, and having them be a part of it in that way is really special.”

“Seeing Tessa walk down the aisle was nothing short of a dream. I was speechless. A moment I had thought about coming to life was a feeling I can’t explain. That whole day was spectacular, and we couldn’t be happier with how it went,” said Alberto, whose tears on the day were wiped away by his new wife.

Alberto’s suit was custom-made by good friend and designer Josh Kercher, of the luxury brand Kercher. As a wedding gift Josh stitched the date of the wedding and “property of Alberto” inside the suit.

Alberto picked five of his closest friends to stand with him; brother Diego, high school best friend Joshua, Dom Sherwood, whom he met on the set of Shadowhunters, and Daniel Kyri (whom he calls “DK”) and Jake Lockett, who both starred alongside Alberto in Chicago Fire.

Tessa chose best friend Michelle Bouey to be her Maid of Honor, sister Trisha and friends Paula and Tringa as bridesmaids, while close friend Taylor Buchko was given the honor of being Master of Ceremonies.

The group, mostly, already knew each other – Dom, Jake, and Alberto are in a softball league together – and it helped that the group also went on a joint bachelor/bachelorette trip.

Alberto met Dom at the age of 22 when he joined the cast of the Freeform show that would be based on Cassandra Clare’s books. Ten years on, he says he has now realized “how cool” it was to have formed a friendship like theirs on set.

“I realize now how important it is to have a community of people, how to make friends that are good and keep them close, and we both feel lucky that we’ve met those people and have taken those steps to make sure that these relationships stay close for a long time,” says Alberto.

“And then in Chicago we also found good people and held them close; we’re so happy that Miranda [Rae Mayo] was able to work her schedule so she could be there.”

“Everybody who came to our wedding was in that category of friendship; we felt so lucky to have the most amazing people in our lives who would be willing to come celebrate with us,” added Tessa.

The pair hired Chef Adam Loo, who runs Ada Culinary studio in Charlottetown, specializing in bringing the food of the world to PEI. “We spoke to him about a year ago, and since then, he and his amazing team have done an incredible amount of research to bring as much authenticity to the menu as possible,” shared Alberto. 

“We wanted to infuse our wedding meal with my culture and Tessa’s island culture, and I’m also very happy to say that the Colombians were supremely impressed with Chef Adam’s execution of dishes I’ve been eating my whole life.”

Guests dined on oysters and empanadas for hors d’oeuvres and enjoyed three courses of Colombian arepa with a side of beef, PEI lobster tail, new potatoes with seasonal vegetables, and a selection of desserts.

The cake was designed by local bakery For Real Dough, and was a classic vanilla cake with locally sourced strawberries.

“Originally I wanted to drench our whole wedding in green, but it was really difficult to find the right rentals and linens that were the right shade of green, so we improvised and tried to add in as much green as we could anywhere possible,” said Tessa.

“The flowers ended up being a part of that; it’s fun to have a green blossom, and I really wanted to play with texture and shape, have some length and movement to it.”

They ordered stems from a local flower shop, Flower Buds, and then visited Island Meadows Farm, where they chose buckets of flowers to make their arrangements.

Tessa and Alberto were, lovingly, peer pressured into a joint party because they originally had no plans to organize anything.

“Our friends were like, ‘If you don’t do this, we’re going to be so mad at you!'” laughed Alberto, and so 12 of them ended up on a Virgin Voyages cruise from Miami to Mexico that “felt like adult summer camp”.

“There were always activities, there was a bar at every turn, you’re with your 12 best friends, and it was so fun.”

“The group chat still pops off and it’s like, ‘When’s the next cruise?'”

“I know one thing that’s going to be fun is gonna be processing the wedding because we both have memories that are coming back to us, ‘Oh, you didn’t know this happened!’,” said Alberto.

“We also did an audio guest book instead of a written one, so we have a bunch of voicemails from people throughout the night that we get to listen to on repeat,” shared Tessa.

“As the night goes on, they get louder, the language becomes more colorful, at some point, some of them start to not be about anything! There were skits and ongoing bits like people were pretending they were actually trying to call us on the phone, and it got very inventive.”