For the Benicia-based entertainment company My Once Upon a Time, fantasy is reality. Characters who have long been relegated to fiction will come alive through their work.

My Once Upon a Time specializes in bringing together actors to portray beloved characters for events like birthday parties, weddings, baby showers, baptisms, charity events and more. These characters include representations of everything from well-known superheroes to Disney princesses to antiheroes and villains.

According to co-owner Loni Gunn, the business was a culmination of a lifelong love of theatre and cosplay.

“I’ve loved dressing up since I was a child,” she said. “I never fell out of that. I always liked dressing up.”

Gunn first became involved with a princess company out of Vacaville after she saw one of her friends post a picture on Facebook of her daughter getting a visit from a princess.

“My goal in life was to be a cartoon character, and I didn’t realize that was a reality,” she said.

Gunn met her boyfriend and eventual business partner Adam Serafino at a Mardi Gras party, and they fell in love while cosplaying as Rapunzel and Flynn Rider from the 2010 Disney movie “Tangled” at a Napa Christmas parade.

“In essence, we’ve been dressing up since we first met,” she said.

Gunn and Serafino moved to Los Angeles to pursue their dreams, with Serafino working as an actor and Gunn as a makeup artist. They spent every week going to Disneyland dressed as different characters, which attracted large crowds. Both moved back to the Bay Area after a year because of the intensity of L.A.

“It was too competitive and really fast-paced, but not in a good way,” Gunn said.

Upon returning to the area, Gunn had a lifelong friend ask her if they wanted to start a princess company. An opportunity arose when Gunn’s mother, who works at KUIC in Vacaville, said she had a co-worker who was looking for somebody to portray Anna and Elsa from “Frozen” for the Fairfield Christmas Tree Lighting. Gunn was able to secure two long-time acting friends— Sarah and Rachel Richardson— to portray interpretations of the two sisters, and provide the right costumes and wigs. Gunn chose to persist with the company and branch out from just featuring princesses to having anything from fantasy to science fiction to video game and anime characters.

Serafino took over the business side, which Gunn said has been a major help, especially when it came to designing the logo, business cards and website.

“If not for him, I don’t know if I could have done this,” she said. “Having him there to fill the gaps of the stuff I couldn’t do really helped.”

Serafino also got to serve as the main male actor, and they recruited an assortment of friends, including actors from Missouri Street Theatre and Downtown Theatre in Fairfield.

“I prefer for it to be tighter knit,” Gunn said. “We’re like a family and friend-owned hobby business instead of a corporate thing, and I didn’t really want it to be that. I like to keep it small and more personal.”

The business initially operated out of Gunn’s mother’s home in Green Valley with all of the supplies being stored in a bedroom closet. Then she moved in with Serafino’s family in Vallejo, where they were able to provide a full room. Now they live in Benicia.

“I always wanted to do it out of Benicia because this is one of my favorite places in the world,” Gunn said.

Much of My Once Upon a Time’s business has been at children’s birthday parties, where the characters briefly stop by to do everything from balloon twisting, facepainting, glitter tattoos, makeovers, story reading, tea parties, autographs and even singalongs and games based on the characters they portray. However, the cast has also done meet and greets during movie openings at Brenden Theaters in Vacaville, a Memorial Day promotion at the Ford dealership in Fairfield, Make A Wish Foundation events and even Benicia’s Torchlight Parade. This Saturday, they will have an event for the Vallejo Admirals game in conjunction with Bombshell Entertainment Services, which My Once Upon a Time recently partnered with.

Gunn said her favorite part of the business is being able to work with her actor friends in a unique way.

“I get to involve all of my actor friends in Solano County and give them something to look forward to,” she said. “It brings not only the clients joy, but it brings them joy and it brings me joy. It spreads so much joy around, and it’s just amazing.”

In an often tumultuous world, Gunn said, joy is important.

“It’s a really good feeling when you’re making all of these families and kids happy,” she said. “I think we all need the fantasy world to survive because the real world is kind of a scary place most of the time.”

For more information about the business or bookings, visit http://myonceuponatime.wixsite.com/events or email myonceuponatime@hotmail.com.