I just wanted to make sure I got the word out. Fairy Tale Affairs in Massapequa has been a total nightmarte! From the start, the experience was chaotic. A young girl helped me and about 20 other customers at the same time one Saturday morning in March. I felt bad for the girl becuse she was literally running around trying to accomodate everyone, but there were too many people and only she and the owner running the show. It took me 2 1/2 hours to complete my wedding invitation order. Luckily when I went back to approve the proofs (which I wasn't told I'd have to treck back to the store to do - I had dealt with other invitation compamies and they email you a proof), I was told that the young girl was let go for making too many mistakes (well, duh - the place was crazy!) and that parts of my order weren't right. Long story short, it was rectified, but of course I ended up payign more money. Turns out I needed other enveloped and I was never charged for the caligraphy I thought I had originally paid for.
Now we get to the caligraphy. Mind you, everytime I called this place, thre owner sounded like a disgruntled employee who hates her job. When I got in touch with the owner to find out about sending in a final list to go to the caligrapher, she was of no help when I told her I wanted to send out my invitations in a week and a half. She told me that the laser caligraphy takes two weeks. Ok. Fine. A week later, I get a csall stating that the laser caligraphy machine broke and they no longer provie the service, so they have found someone else to do it. However, I had to call this other person and coordinate, pay, and pick up from her business she ran from her house. She ended up being LOVELY and the caligraphy came our perfect, however, my invitations went out two weeks late.
Now we get to eveything else. My mom (good bless her heart) wanted to hire the owner for a day of coordinator. We also ordered linens, candies, a cake topper, and a place card board from here. A couple of weeks after the initial order of the candies was placed, my mom called to say we had to cancel the order because our catering facility did not allow outside food. So now we lost our deposit on that, even though the order was cancelled in June and my wedding was in October. The owner claimed she had to put a deposit in with the 3rd party candy people. RIGHT. Mind you, my mom gave the owner more money than needed up front, which is always a terrible idea.
We had to cancel the linens because I changed my color scheme. The prices were astronomical, and any dilligent bride-to-be can find linens much cheaper online to buy for the price to rent here. (PS - I ended using Table Wraps in Plainview/Syosset and they were AMAZING!)
The owner got incrasingly annoyed with the cancellations, even though she now just got a whole bunch of money for doing nothing. By this point I had it - and cancelled the owner as my "day of coordintor" because I couldn't see putting up with her attitude and unprofesisonalism.
I called a week and half before my wedding to get measurements for my guest list board because I had to find a frame. She did not have the measurements and did not offer to help me get them. I had to wait until the Wednesday before my wedding, when I went to pick up the item to be able to shop for a frame.
To top it all off, THE OWNER LEFT ME A BIZARRE VOICEMAIL this week. What's very interesting, something that small businesses always forget, is that for the money you don't return to a customer when they are unhappy costs way more than the actual money. You have succedded in thoughroughly annoying the original customer so that they never return, and now they're going to tell all their friends. So, here you go friends. I just wanted everyone to know. I'm going to share all around town.