Full disclosure: my wife and I used Fairytale Productions for our wedding reception in October 2015, so this review is adapted from notes I took during the process. We used their photography & DJ services.
First, the positives: due to some poor planning on my part, I began the booking process with Fairytale very soon before our reception, but they were more than accommodating, told me not to worry, and de-stressed me on the spot. As a bonus, they were very reasonably priced, and even had some nice specials going for getting a metal canvas print and free photo credit.
I did all the planning and payment over the phone, and found that part of the process pretty convenient. My wife and I loved having a nice swath of available photographers, and really couldn't be happier with the pictures she took. Her process and attitude was professional and easy-going. Though my wife had researched several individual and group poses beforehand, the photographer threw in some cute ideas of her own.
The actual issue we had with photography was after the big day. Fairytale totes a hardline "no sneak previews" policy on your photos, their reason being to prevent early customer feedback on the editing style of the photos and sort of a "you get what you get" stance. The funny part about that policy is that I couldn't really interact with the photographer directly (anymore than I could with the DJ), as Fairytale works hard to be an established middle man between you and your service contractors. But, when you're dropping non-trivial stacks on photography, you can't just not communicate for two months, which is how long it took until I saw a single photo.
Now the DJ was another story. Fairytale (or maybe the contractor DJ, I'm not sure) had some pretty horrendous web software for playlist planning, not only user-unfriendly, but we'd already spent meticulous hours crafting Spotify playlists for dinner & dancing. The thought of transferring our work seemed needless, so we emailed Fairytale telling them about the Spotify playlists and they obliged. In essence, we did all the work of compiling the playlists...literally every song, including a self-proclaimed kick-ass wedding party entrance sequence that my wife held up as her shining jewel. We told the DJ don't play anything else but these songs. All he had to do was hit "play".
Come the big day and the big entrance, and the DJ completely botched the first song, as in, played his own random song (it was supposed to be the "Friends" theme if y'all are curious). It was a very "you had one job" moment. Honestly, I didn't really want the DJ so much as I wanted his equipment and lighting. Some might claim I'm mole-mountaining this, but honestly, when you spend hours planning the songs your guests are going to hear, along with detailed instructions, mistakes are kinda unforgivable.
Let me conclude by saying that I think Fairytale itself did a good job logistically, priced its services fairly (especially in an industry which "gouges on emotion"), and was flexible with our schedule and needs, but I also hold them partially responsible for the contractors they use and the policies they adopt.
Wedding planning pro-tip: No matter how much you plan, something will go wrong. You just have to roll with it. read more