Brandywine Catering at 1410 Baltimore Pike #1, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.

If you don't want to read the whole story, our bottom-line advice is to stay far, far away from Brandywine Catering because of their unethical business practices and poor quality of food.

My finacée and I are planning our wedding for next spring at one of the Delaware State Parks. DSP provides a list of approved caterers for use at their facilities. We currently live out of state, so it was somewhat difficult to assess the various folks on the list, but we browsed some websites, and contacted 4 or 5 caterers that we thought looked promising and within our price range. Ted Pace, the owner at Brandywine Catering, was one of those initial contacts.

After several rounds of e-mailing back and forth with Ted, we received a reasonably-priced proposal and we arranged to meet on a Saturday afternoon in March. We discussed our menu and dietary restrictions, and agreed that several tweaks could be made to Ted's initial proposal that would be more in line with our thoughts. We were, however, surprised to be seated at a table with a large coffee stain on the tablecloth.

A few months later, we returned to Ted's facility for a tasting. Ted prepared a tasting that was neither representative of the menu we had agreed upon, nor palatable or (in some cases) safely edible. The appetizers were, by all accounts, the "best" part of the testing, but were totally different from those on our proposal. I partially excused this, as the appetizers we had chosen were slightly more traditional and a known quantity, so Ted offered us some options. However, Ted lost the benefit of the doubt when the entrees and sides were presented (none of which were on our original menu either). We were served food that was no part of our original menu, and even worse, was undercooked, burned, flavorless, or all three - including partially raw chicken. Google's character limit prevents me from fully explaining the details of the food, but my Yelp! review has everything.

Needless to say, we were appalled at the quality of the food. My mother said it was the worst she has had since she can remember. OK, so the food was bad. Unfathomably bad. We learned our lesson, and we won't be using Ted and Brandywine Catering for our wedding. End of story, right? Not quite.

After we finished with our food, Ted returned to the table and asked if we had enjoyed it. We murmured uneasily, not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings and wanting to escape as soon as possible. After the awkwardness of that unfortunate moment passed, Ted laid down the hammer:

"So, usually what we do for the tasting is charge $25 per person. If you decide to go with us, you can apply that to your overall payment."

WHAT? We were never informed of this charge before the tasting, EVER. This is not the common practice of caterers - we visited others who served us tastings for free. Even in the absence of a regular business practice, to be blindsided with such a charge AFTER we had already "eaten" our meal is frankly unethical. We paid, but in retrospect should have walked out as soon as he brought up the issue of payment. If we had been informed beforehand, we may not have been happy with the quality of food, but at least would have known the consequences of our choices.

Overall, I'm happy that nobody in my family got salmonella, but unhappy about paying $75 for something that I thought was free. We notified DSP about our experience, and while I don't know if Ted and Brandywine Catering will be removed from the approved list just based on our thoughts alone, you should think long and hard about giving him your business.