Culinary Delights Catering and Special Event Planning

Sandy Brooks Excellent! Scott and I would like to express our endless appreciation to Sandy Brooks for the excellent job she did, as our caterer and day of event coordinator, at our wedding ceremony and reception Saturday October 3, 2015 in Colonial Williamsburg. I cannot begin to express the depth of our gratitude. Our ceremony and venue presented many obstacles including a very large bridal party (24 bridesmaids/groomsmen), 215 guests and indoor and outdoor spaces including additional separate buildings for the bridal party to convene. Sandy guided us to our original ceremony site at the Williamsburg Community Building and communicated with us frequently connecting us with all the best vendors of Williamsburg: "Betty's", Betty Swindler chef, prepared the most delicious appetizers and dinner menu; Michelle Nix Brown of "Enchanted Cakes" baked the most scrumptious cakes and cupcakes; Jennifer Hewitt of Williamsburg Event Rentals designed and redesigned our reception taking calls at all hours of the day/weekends despite many obstacles; Elgin Morris from Williamsburg Floral and Gifts provided beautifully lit ficus trees. Sandy Brooks is far more than a caterer and provided exceptional support and guidance throughout the entire planning timeline. Her guidance and expertise was critical since we live in Northern Virginia and the bride and groom resided in Virginia Beach. Two months into planning, and much to our surprise, we found out that our wedding location was inadvertently located in the midst of the "Occasion for the Arts" festival weekend which required even greater communication on access, parking and vendor arrival schedules. Just when we thought all of the wedding events were set the other shoe dropped. Excessive rain, a Nor’easter and potential hurricane concerned our events company enough to call Thursday evening (less than 48 hours before the wedding) and cancel our outside tent. This tent was to provide ceremony seating for 200 guests as well as overflow reception seating for 80-100 guests. The hunt began for a new wedding reception and the use of the Williamsburg Regional Library for our ceremony. Sandy was involved from Thursday evening on and helped coordinate our ceremony and reception moved to the Williamsburg Regional Library and to the W&M Alumni House. Not only did she help coordinate the ceremony but she helped ensure our reception ran seamlessly. The challenges were enormous and yet she rose above all of them. Katie texted me after the wedding to say thanks for the wedding of her dreams. We considered ourselves extremely fortunate to have Sandy Brooks of Culinary Delights and Catering for our ceremony and reception. We would highly recommend her for your ceremony, reception and any of your special life moments. My daughter Katie Bentley (W&M alumni class of 2010), her husband Will Honbarrier (W&M alumni class of 2011) and Scott and I would like to thank Sandy Brooks from the bottom of our hearts. Extremely grateful, Kathy and Scott Bentley Katie and Will Honbarrier (Alumni Classes of 2010 and 2011)

Sandy and the entire Culinary Delights team are absolutely AMAZING to work with! My fiancé and I were planning our entire event long distance and so we had to rely on phone calls, emails and no small amount of faith to pull it off. Sandy was one of the first vendor calls we made and from the get-go, it was clear she was the one for us! She is incredibly fast to respond and really worked with us to hone our “vision” of what we wanted the event to be, not just the food but rather the whole day. I knew I wanted our guests to eat well and not just the standard wedding fare so, Sandy worked with us very diligently and patiently on crafting a menu that offered lots a wide variety of options and kept us within budget. She offered so much guidance along the way and helped us lock in details with other vendors along the way. Our venue was a blank slate and we had to bring all items in for the day. Sandy handled the coordination of rental items such as tables, linens, dishware, glassware, etc. which was one less thing for us to have to worry about. When I finally walked into the venue on the day, it took my breath away – it was far more beautiful than I ever could have envisioned! And the food was INCREDIBLE!! Everything was so yummy – our guests are still raving. Sandy and her staff took incredibly good care of us throughout the event and packed up all the leftovers for us to take with us back to our hotel. That may have been the most well-fed after party ever. I simply cannot say enough great things about Sandy and her staff – she gives so much personal attention and time to make your event special. We couldn’t be happier and HIGHLY recommend!!!!

Sandy Brooks, the brains and talent behind Culinary Delights Catering, is phenomenal. She goes above and beyond to make sure your event is what you want it to be and her chef is AMAZING. I heard many times that day and afterward from people how good our food was, and how it was better than the typical wedding food. She had great ideas for things (even non-food involved things) and was very helpful in general. I'd use her again in a heartbeat. In addition, our cake vendor couldn't stop raving about Sandy. She said, in all the wedding caterers she's worked with, Sandy Brooks was the first to actually care about the cake at all! Instead of making everything dealing with the cake my problem (how it would be served, what it would be served with, etc), she actually called to make sure everything was good to go with refrigeration and getting the cake to the wedding site. Sandy also made sure the cake was displayed, served and that all was well which I've heard other caterers don't do at all. Our cake vendor (Cracked Egg Bakery) said that Culinary Delights Catering would be the first caterer she'd recommend any brides who come to her to work with since she went above and beyond.