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Most
churches
require that you be a member if you want to use their church for a
wedding, but a few churches and chapels will rent their space to
non-members and let you use your own minister.
I have performed wedding ceremonies at dozens of churches around
town, and I highly recommend the following sites, which allow
non-members to rent them for weddings. Contact information, chapel
site rental fees and other costs, plus notes about their use as a
wedding site are listed for each chapel.
The Minnesota wedding chapels reviewed here are:
* Lake Harriet Spiritual
Community in South Minneapolis, MN
* Fort Snelling Memorial Chapel,
between Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN
* Nazareth Chapel at
Northwestern College, just north of St. Paul, MN
* Wesley Church in
downtown Minneapolis, MN
* Unity South Church in
Bloomington, MN
* Little White Church in the
Valley (only for small weddings) in Golden Valley, MN


If you are looking for a rehearsal dinner location, the upscale Jax Cafe in nearby northeast Minneapolis has five private dining rooms.
Note: If your wedding is on a Friday evening, or Saturday afternoon evening, you must book their adjoining reception hall. (If your wedding ceremony is on a Saturday morning, or on a Sunday, renting the reception hall is optional.)
Nazareth Chapel is located in Roseville, Minnesota, off of Snelling Avenue, just south of I-694. The site rental fee for weddings at the Nazareth Chapel is about $800-$900. The chapel seats 300 people. Call 651-631-5388 and talk to Debbie Bock.


1 Federal Drive, Fort
Snelling, MN 55111 - (612) 970-7866.
Right between Minneapolis and Saint Paul.
The complex at Fort Snelling is also home to the Fort Snelling Club (612-725-2272, $700, seats 300), which is available for wedding receptions. One advantage of using this reception site is that they do not charge sales tax, city tax, or state liquor tax on their liquor (which can total up to 15%). Note that the Fort Snelling Club (Building 89) is not the same as the Officer's Club.
Fort Snelling Memorial Chapel is about 1/2 mile from Buca di Beppo, which is a great Italian restaurant that serves everything "family style" (portions for 3-5 people). It's perfect for a rehearsal dinner.
The cost of renting the Fort Snelling Memorial Chapel is about $600 for a wedding ceremony, with two options for Saturdays: either 11:00am-2:00pm or 4:00-7:00pm. Call 612-725-2390 to talk to the chapel secretary, Barb. She is very efficient, and if you have to leave a message she will get right back to you. Also, the site manager, Darrel, is a wonderful guy who has worked there for years; I have worked with him for many wedding ceremonies. The chapel seats up to 300 people, but it has a small, cozy, intimate feel, and I've performed wedding ceremonies there with just 20 guests, and it worked just fine.
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A great nearby rehearsal dinner option is the Ichiban Japanese Steakhouse, which is two blocks away on Nicollet Avenue.
Wesley
Church is located in downtown Minneapolis, across the
street from a small, well-kept park, which is perfect for wedding
pictures. While most wedding ceremonies at Wesley
Church have 150-200 guests (a size that works quite well
in the space), the bottom floor of the sanctuary easily seats 500
people, and the top can fit another 400 to 500. So the site can
actually accomodate almost 1,000 people. The rental fee for Wesley
Church is about $1,650, and they're very generous about
what they include: 5 hours on the wedding day, 1-1/2 hours for the
rehearsal, the sound tech, the custodian, and the services of
either John or Marcia, who helps set things up. You can call
either John or Marcia about renting the church for weddings at
612-871-3885.
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The
"Little
White
Church in the Valley", as it is sometimes called, was built in
1882, and has been lovingly restored. This historic church pews will
seat up to 80 persons. There is a private bride's preparation room
and separate prep room for the groom and his attendants. For music,
the chapel has a 1941 Chickering upright piano and 1950's vintage
Conn church organ ( both in mint condition). The chapel does have an
iPod and laptop computer connection wire which will put the music
through the speakers in the ceiling.
Wedding chapel question:
Dear Rev. Coleman,
I
have been using your site as a great reference trying to plan a MN
wedding from Chicago. We have booked the James
J.
Hill Library for a reception in October (25th) but are
having some trouble finding a wedding ceremony site for about 200
people. We would like for our ceremony to be non-denominational
but to still feel spiritual.
Can you suggest any venues? We'd like it to be indoors. We love
LOVE the Nazareth Chapel but it is
already booked for our date. Something similar would be wonderful.
I'm sure you get a lot of emails everyday - but I thought I'd give
it a shot.
Thank you in advance for your time.
Answer:
Hmm...a spiritual wedding, but non-denominational. Let's see -
first of all, have you thought about having a minister perform a
wedding ceremony at the Library? It's a wonderfully grand site,
and can work well for the wedding ceremony. Then, during the
cocktail hour, the staff sets it all up for the wedding reception.
As we talked about, most churches won't rent to non-members, and
the ones that do usually charge a premium. For instance, Hennepin
Avenue United Methodist Church is $2,500; and the Basilica
is $3,000-$4,000.
I have performed several wedding ceremonies at the Diamond Lake Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, and they might be worth checking out. (I'm really searching here, because I don't know their fees...I just know that I've performed wedding ceremonies there.) Diamond Lake Lutheran Church's phone number is 612-866-2579.
If you haven't seen it already, here are pictures and info for Concordia University's chapel in St. Paul, which is available for wedding ceremonies. The chapel is named Graebner Memorial Chapel.
Warmly,
Rev. Tomkin Coleman
Chapels
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