Venue Reviews - Minnesota Wedding Chapels

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
* Little White Church in the Valley (only for small weddings) in Golden Valley, MN

Nazareth Chapel at Northwestern College

3003 Snelling Avenue North, St Paul, MN 55113 - (651) 631-5388.

Roseville's Nazareth Chapel at Northwestern College is spacious and gorgeous - perfect for a grand, elegant wedding. The chapel has marble columns, stone walls, and wooden pews. To get to the chapel, visitors drive through the college's beautiful tree-lined campus. This wedding chapel books up faster than any other in the Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN, area, because of its striking beauty. The grounds are amazing, too - even though it's in the middle of the Twin Cities, you feel like you're really away from it all because the campus is so lush and isolated. Nazareth Chapel also has an adjoining reception hall with its own catering, if you'd like to have the reception there. 

If you are looking for a rehearsal dinner location, the upscale Jax Cafe in nearby northeast Minneapolis has five private dining rooms.

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.

 
   
 
 

Fort Snelling Memorial Chapel is a beautiful old stone chapel between Minneapolis and St. Paul, off of Highway 55, close to the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport. This chapel is a smaller, special space and was one of the first churches built in the state. While it is easily accessible because it's close to the highway, it's in the middle of the very large Fort Snelling State Park. But you get the whole chapel to yourselves for the afternoon. Fort Snelling Memorial Chapel is non-denominational, so people of any faith can marry here. If you have musicians, they usually sit by the rear entrance (in the top right-hand picture, that entrance is on the far right) or in the balcony (in the top right-hand picture, the balcony is on the top left). You can see the interior better on this virtual tour.

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.

  

 

Wesley Church - Downtown Minneapolis

101 E. Grant St, Minneapolis, MN 55403 - (612) 518-5568. Wesley Church is a gorgeous stone church in the Nicollet Avenue/Convention Center area of downtown Minneapolis, MN. The church is very community-oriented and permits non-members to rent the space for wedding ceremonies. Not only is the exterior beautiful, with gorgeous red stone, the interior is stunning, too - it has carved wood and rich upholstery. Even though most weddings don't use the church's balcony, it gives the space a grand, magnificent feel, while the main floor seems intimate and friendly. So Wesley Church is beautiful, romantic, and cozy, yet spacious enough to accomodate the largest of weddings. The cherry color of the wood really warms the whole place up. The bridal staircase can provide a unique entrance for the bride, but most brides and grooms choose to come down the center aisle. 

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 the site manager, Molly Campe, who helps set things up. Molly is the person to call about renting the church for weddings; her phone number is 612-518-5568. Molly is really helpful, knowlegeable, and friendly - if she's not at her desk, just leave a message, and she'll return your phone call quickly. 

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Little White Church in the Valley - Golden Valley - SMALL weddings

6731 Golden Valley Road, Golden Valley, MN 55427 - (763) 588-8578.
In the first-ring western suburb of Minneapolis named Golden Valley, there is a beautiful historical chapel run by the Golden Valley Historical Society. If you have a SMALL wedding ceremony (less than 80 guests), this chapel can be perfect. Many couples find that if they have an intimate ceremony, a lot of churches just seem huge. Even if a church only has pews that hold 200, a wedding with 20 guests can seem pretty small. Not at this chapel, though!

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.

Rental fee: $350. Note that if you want the chapel for a rehearsal the day before, there is an extra $200 charge.
Capacity: 80 guests - suitable for SMALL wedding ceremonies.
Contact Don Anderson at 763-588-8578 to inquire about availability.

 

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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 ceremnies. The chapel is named Graebner Memorial Chapel.

Warmly,

Rev. Tomkin Coleman