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James J. Hill Library:
This archway at the top of the steps is the entrance to the reference section at the James J. Hill Library in St Paul, MN, where wedding ceremonies and receptions are held. The archway to the public library entrance is much farther down. Built in the Beaux Arts style.	Usually Guests at the James J. Hill Library are seated in rows for wedding ceremonies and then afterwards round tables and a rectangular head table is set up for the wedding reception.
You can see here how high the James J. Hill Library's ceiling is. If you were standing here, the main windows would be behind you.	The James J. Hill Library faces Rice Park (site of St Paul Winter Carnival ice sculpting).It's lush and green in the summer.

James J. Hill Library 
Downtown St Paul, Minnesota
80 West 4th Street
The James J. Hill Library in St Paul, MN is a breathtaking spot for weddings.
They have a huge hall, several stories high, with a marble floor. The pictures can't do it justice. The James J. Hill Library is a unique location, with hundreds of thousands of beautiful old books. The Library is a reading library, not a lending library, which means visitors can only read their business books right there in the library. You can have both the wedding ceremony and the reception there and use any licensed caterer you wish. The James J. Hill Library is on Rice Park in downtown St Paul, MN, within a block of the Minnesota Science Museum, the Xcel Energy Center, the Ordway, the St Paul Hotel, and the Landmark Center. Call 651-265-5447 and talk to Beth O'Connor. Beth is friendly and easy to work with - and she really knows the library. The James J. Hill Library always has ceremonies with receptions, so they really don't have a ceremony charge. Their fee is $3700 which includes the ceremony rental fee ($300) and the reception rent of $3400. The site is worth every penny. After the wedding, the main floor is set up for the reception. Take a 360 degree virtual tour of the Hill Library.

Great site for a rehearsal dinner: About a mile from the library is Forepaugh's Restaurant of St Paul, Minnesota. Forepaugh's an upscale French restaurant in a Victorian Mansion which will rent a room to you for a rehearsal dinner.
Closest hotel: The 5-star Helmsley Saint Paul Hotel is across the street.
Up to 175 guests

Landmark Center:
The Neoclassical Landmark Center is in the heart of downtown St Paul, MN, overlooking Rice Park. This is the view of the Landmark Center from the Ordway Theatre.	The huge lobby of the Landmark Center is spectacular for larger wedding ceremonies. This main hall (called the Cortile Atrium) rents for $2000 and can hold 400 Guests  For large weddings in the main lobby of the Landmark Center, guests are usually sitting in chairs in lobby down below, but guests often wander up to these higher floors during the wedding reception because of the amazing view. If your wedding is in the large, center lobby of the Landmark Center, the Groom and attendants often use this room for dressing before the wedding.
The Butler Courtroom of the Landmark Center holds 60, and rents for $400.   There are many small ex-courtrooms like this one at the Landmark Center, which are available for rent for wedding ceremonies, and they're all different.
Landmark Center  Downtown St Paul, Minnesota 75 West 5th Street One of my favorite Minnesota wedding locations is the Landmark Center, because it offers so many options. You can rent a beautiful small courtroom for small weddings, or the large lobby for large weddings. The large lobby can be used for receptions, as well. The Landmark Center is right in the center of downtown St Paul, MN. Across the street is Rice Park, and on the other three sides of the park are the St Paul Hotel, the James J Hill Library, and the Ordway Center, which you can see in a 360 degree view. Here is the 360 view in winter, where the ice sculptures for the St Paul Carnival are built. The Minnesota Science Museum is about a block away, which can be suggested for guests to view on the wedding weekend There are several courtrooms to choose from, and each looks different (all beautiful) and are different sizes. You'll have to tour the space to see which one you like best - it's difficult to get much of a feel of the difference between the courtrooms from pictures.  They have a piano for your use, as well. Great site for a rehearsal dinner: St Paul Buca's is a fun family Italian restaurant with wonderful food and is 2 miles away. Closest hotel: The 5-star Helmsley Saint Paul Hotel is across the street. The Landmark Center usually charges about $2,750 for the main hall (called the Musser Cortile atrium) or $400-$1000 for the smaller courtrooms.   Downtown St Paul, MN, across the street from Rice Park.  Call 651-292-3228, then press the number 4, and you'll reach Betsy in Events. 50 to 1,000 guests

Great Hall:
The Great Hall in St Paul, MN takes up the first 4 floors of this building	This grand escalator of the Great Hall is often used for photos
A wedding ceremony at the Great Hall, is usually on this big main floor, then the cocktail hour is on the second floor. During the cocktail hour the caterers set up this first floor for the wedding reception.

Great Hall
Downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota
180 East 5th Street
An 8-picture photo album of the Great Hall can be viewed here
The Great Hall is a wonderful location for weddings and is one of my favorites. The name can be a bit confusing when you're looking for information on the web, because many Minnesota wedding reception sites use the term "Great Hall" to refer to one of their rooms.  The Great Hall of St Paul, MN is a huge beautiful old reception hall, several stories tall, with lots of marble, brass, and antique chandeliers. The Great Hall has an amazing escalator from the first to the second floor, which is often used for spectacular wedding photos of the bridal party.

Great place for a rehearsal dinner: The Great Hall is within walking distance of Christo's, an upscale Greek restaurant that will rent their mezzanine for a rehearsal dinner.  
Closest hotels: The 3-star Ramada City Center Hotel is about 3 blocks away and the 5-star Helmsley Saint Paul Hotel is about 6 blocks away.

(651) 291-3579
Accommodates several hundred guests
The Great Hall has a site rental fee of about $3,000 for weddings

Como Conservatory:
The Como Conservatory at the Como Zoo is literally the most popular site for small weddings in Minnesota.	The Sunken Garden is the most popular choice of wedding ceremony locations at the Como Conservatory in St Paul, MN. The Bride and Groom stand on the far steps, and the guests are on the left-hand aisle so the Processional and Recessional can go down the right-hand aisle.
This new building just to the left of the Como Conservatory now hosts large wedding receptions. Here's a separate article about it from my blog.	The outdoor Japanese Garden at the Como Conservatory is also perfect for small weddings, and it's reviewed separately in the Outdoor Weddings review section.

Como Conservatory  
More brides and grooms choose Como Conservatory (a.k.a. the Marjorie McNally Conservatory) for their wedding ceremony than any other wedding location in Minnesota, and it's perfect for small weddings. The wedding guests remain standing in one aisle (usually the left aisle), while the bride walks down the other aisle. The picture on the bottom right is of the outdoor Japanese garden, which holds 4-20 guests. For evening weddings during the winter it will be dark outside and the candle-light option offered by the Conservatory is definitely worth choosing. The twelve candelabras create an amazing glow against the darkness outside. Winter weddings in the Sunken Garden are wonderful because the lushness and warmth inside contrasts so strongly with the cold of the Minnesota winter weather outside. Summer weddings in the Conservatory are nice and cool, though.

Either wing of Como Conservatory works well for a small wedding (2-50 people or so). Because the Como Conservatory is so highly sought-after for weddings, the time constraints are strictly enforced by the staff. The staff is very friendly, but they have to make sure that events don't go too long.

Note - if you have your reception here (in the center conservatory), the site does not permit alcohol. Most weddings here have their reception at a separate site, or at the adjacent Como Hall. Both sites are catered by Lancer Catering, which has a wonderful 360 degree view of the  Como Banquet Hall and of the Sunken Garden.

651-487-8250
Como Conservatory charges a fee of about $850 for wedding ceremonies
St Paul, Minnesota
4-50 guests

You may also want to check out my blog article on 
Como Conservatory's new wedding reception hall.
(The blog opens in a new window.)

Black Bear Crossings:
From this parking lot view, you can see Black Bear Crossings banquet center on left, and pavilion on the right.	The Black Bear Crossings pavilion overlooks Como Lake. This photo is taken from where the bride and groom usually stand during the wedding ceremony.
The gorgeous Hamm Memorial Waterfall is about 30 feet away from Black Bear Crossings in St Paul. Photographers love this site for wedding pictures.	Sometimes other users of the park are down in this area, which is between Black Bear Crossings and the lake, but they can't be heard from up on the pavilion
Black Bear Crossings at the Como Park Pavilion St Paul, Minnesota 1360 Lexington Parkway North Black Bear Crossings is a reception hall in the middle of Como Park that overlooks Como Lake. Photographers love the pavilion at Como Park because you can walk right over to the photogenic Como Zoo and the Conservatory. The top left photo shows the banquet center on the left, with the pavilion on the right. Most couples hold their wedding ceremonies on the outdoor pavilion, and then have the reception either in the indoor reception hall or in the pavilion itself. The Como pavilion is a unique wedding ceremony site in the Twin Cities area because you have the benefits of both an outdoor and an indoor wedding (it's outdoors, but covered). Black Bear Crossings does not have a sound system, so the location should be treated as an outdoor setting in that the officiant must project extremely well. 200 Guests, $1850 rental fee for wedding ceremony and reception 651-488-4920

My recommendations for wedding sites:

Chapels   Parks   Gardens 
Mansions   Museums   Hotels   Restaurants   Historic   Comparison Matrix

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Photos used by permission of 
James J Hill Library, Landmark Center, the Great Hall, Como Park Pavilion.  
Please do not distribute. Landmark Center 360 degree pictures courtesy of Big Eye In the Sky.
James J Hill Library 360 degree picture courtesy of 360° Virtual Tour by Photography By Design, Inc. All content ©Copyright 1999 by Rev. Coleman
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