Edward-Dean Museum & Gardens

Disappointed

Yikes. It’s been two months since our wedding, and still, I cringe with disappointment and sadness. For starters, I want to say that the best part of this process was working with Summer, their coordinator. Even with the few bumps, on the wedding day she was amazing. Now for the not-so-great aspects. I think our biggest disappointment was with their caterer, Haus Bistro (which is now their mandatory caterer I believe). The food itself was PERFECT. All our guests enjoyed the food- but we had SOOO many of them complain of the actual service from the staff - most of the comments saying how rude they were. It was kind of embarrassing having to hear our friends/family say that, but I also wasn’t surprised. When we booked them, we had been clear about what we wanted: a plated dinner (which industry standard means “served at the table”) and when I asked Margie (their manager) she said it would be plated- and about 5 days before our wedding, she tells us she meant that it was a serviced Buffet… which felt a little shady especially considering she herself mentioned how long she’s been in this business. On top of that, her communication with us was sooo terrible- I barely got any responses and when I did, they were months later, and we were often confused with another wedding/our details were incorrect on their end. One final note on the catering was the bartending/beverage service… the bartender was provided with our cocktail recipes and … it was obvious that she didn’t bother to look at it and/or be consistent as none of the cocktails tasted the way they should have (they weren’t HORRIBLE though). Our package was also supposed to come with a “hydration station” and that was not present at the wedding at all. As for the venue itself- on the day of our rehearsal (2 days prior) the property manager let us know that the venue would not be cleaned because they weren’t able to get the service booked on time, mind you, we booked the venue a year and half in advance. So because of how dirty the venue was, after our rehearsal and the morning of the wedding, my own mother and myself had to clean the ceremony and reception areas. On the wedding day as well, the property manager was about 30 minutes late to open the gates for us to enter with our makeup artist which affected the rest of the days timeline as well. Overall, I loved our ceremony, Summer and our amazing Officiant Heidi perfected it - it was just the overall process and reception that was heartbreaking and disappointing. For what they charge, it’s truly not worth it, especially with the forced catering (I feel so bad to say because the chef was actually very kind and again, his food was perfect- but he unfortunately wasn’t who we were in contact with.) LONG story short… a backyard wedding or elopement would be a better choice for your wallet and sanity.