Recommendations on a Sanctuary in the SW Minneapolis, MN Area Open to Non-members?

Wow, I got a question from a groom! (It's usually brides who write me, or contact me to use my services):


Question:

Dear Rev. Tomkin,

I apologize for the question out of the blue, but my fiancée and I are attempting to plan an April 2009 wedding in the Chaska, MN area from Washington DC. Trying to find a sanctuary to use as non-members is proving far more difficult than we ever imagined as you aptly note on your site. We are all set in terms of a reception site, but would ideally not like to have our guests drive more than 30 - 40 minutes from the ceremony. I have a list of approximately 30 churches in the area that I've tried with limited success at best. We love your list of Minnesota churches and chapels that will rent for weddings. Any thoughts on a pretty church in the SW metro area seating at least 175 that might be open to a couple of non-members?

Please don't feel any pressure to respond, but do know that we have found your website to be a tremendous resource. Thanks for all of the wonderful information and tips!

Sincerely,

-Out of State Groom



Answer:

Dear OOSG,

Great question! You're in luck - check out Weddings Of Wayzata - it's an amazing space. It's not exactly a southwest Minneapolis suburb, it's more western suburb of Minneapolis, MN, but it's not a bad drive from Chaska, Minnesota (see driving directions below).

Weddings of Wayzata, outside of Long Lake, Minnesota, usually rents out their outdoor chapel (a garden that must be seen to be believed...it's breathtaking), but you can rent their church, too, which is pictured above. Basically, this wedding ceremony space used to be a church, the congregation moved and the church sold the space, and now wedding ceremonies are performed there (another church uses the chapel for Sunday services). The indoor chapel holds 250, and it's quite nice. The outdoor "chapel" (actually, a beautiful amphitheatre), is even more striking, and is used much more often for wedding ceremonies. The indoor chapel is usually used as a backup rain location.

Check this link for a map from Chaska to Weddings of Wayzata (it's actually in Long Lake, MN, but that has no alliteration.)

I hope this answer helps!

Warmly,

Rev. Tomkin
Minnesota Wedding Officiant and Planner

Question About Minnesota Marriage Licenses - Answered

Wow, I keep getting all these wonderful questions! Here's the one I got today:


Wedding question:

Dear Rev. Coleman,

I've been reading your website and I like this three step short answer you give on your page: Minnesota Marriage License - How to get one. You say:

Short answer: 1. Apply for your Minnesota marriage license at any county clerk's office (addresses are below) 2. The county then mails you the license 3. You bring the license to your wedding to be signed by the officiant

Here's my question: But what do you do after you get the license signed by the officiant? Take it back to the county clerk? Keep it, you're done?

??

Any insight into this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Minneapolis Bride (I changed her name, of course!)



My answer:

Good morning, MB,

Great question! You definitely want the LONG answer - After you bring the license to the minister, I (or he, or she) will take over. I will:

• Get the license (all 3 copies) signed by two witnesses (usually the Best Man and Maid of Honor)
• I'll then sign the license (all 3 copies)
• 2 of the the copies are just ceremonial i.e. unofficial, and they'll be given back to the couple. Their just souvenir copies.
• The 3rd copy is the important one. After the signing, the minister I will then the county will mail that stamped, certified copy to the couple (the process can take up to a month).
• When you receive that official copy back in the mail, it will be all signed, stamped, and certified. It will be that certified copy of your marriage that is the real deal - that's what you'll use to change your driver's license, etc. (No changing of your documents, such as your driver's license, Social Security card, and the like should be done till after you get that license back...which will be about a month after your wedding.

I hope this answer helps!

Warmly,

Pastor Tomkin Coleman
Minneapolis Wedding Minister

Advice on Finding a Restaurant in Minneapolis, MN for a Wedding

A bride wrote me yesterday (reprinted with her permission):



Question:

Hello, Rev. Coleman,

I love your website! Can you help me with a question? My fiance and I are having a hard time finding a place that is fit for a very small wedding ceremony and dinner to follow. We only have 14 guests including ourselves. Do you have any suggestions for places that do both? We're checking out Forepaugh's and W.A. Frost in St Paul, but were wondering if you had any other suggestions.

If you could possibly let me know what you think, that would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you,

A Grateful Bride

My answer:

Good afternoon,

Good question! There are several great restaurants in the Minneapolis and St Paul, Minnesota area that have private dining rooms, and would thus be well-suited for a wedding ceremony and subsequent reception. They are listed on my page about wedding rehearsal dinner sites in Minneapolis, MN. I hope this link helps!

Warm regards,

Rev. Tomkin Coleman
Minneapolis Wedding Officiant

Notes on wedding at Scherer's Garden in Eagan, MN

If you are looking for an outdoor wedding location in Minnesota, a great site is Scherer's Garden on Cliff Road in Eagan, Minnesota. There's no back-up rain location, so I'd recommend using your wedding reception site as a back-up location, but the vast majority of weddings in the summer in Minnesota are not rained out - Minnesota rain in the summer tends to be in the forms of thunderstorms, which are very short and localized, so weddings are very rarely rained out. The right-hand photo shown here (courtesy of Scherer's Garden website) shows a wedding utilizing a tent for shading the bridal party, so if your wedding is fairly small (10-30 guests), you could possibly use a rented tent for both the bridal party and your guests, and use that large tent as the rain location.

For reviews of other outdoor wedding locations in Minnesota, check out my reviews of garden wedding sites in MN, and weddings in Minnesota parks.


The garden is gorgeous, isn't it? The rental fee is $800, and it's a labor of love for the couple who owns the site. The garden is much bigger than this picture, but this is where the ceremony is held.


The white archway is where the wedding is held, and rows of chairs are set up in front of it. This pic was taken right before a rehearsal I was conducting, so the chairs aren't set up.



Here's a close-up of the arch. Note the green walk-way from the back. The bride and attendants often use this walkway for the Processional.



The bride, groom, and attendants usually line up way behind the trees back there, so their guests don't see them before the wedding. Then the bridal party proceeds in from around the trees, down the green walkway, and the up in front of the arch.

If you're looking for an outdoor wedding site in the southeastern suburbs of St Paul, MN, this is the best wedding location I've seen - it's breathtakingly beautiful. The rental fee is $800, and Scherer's Gardens in Eagan, Minnesota is about 20 minutes from downtown St Paul, and about 30 minutes from downtown Minneapolis, MN.

For other reviews of non-traditional wedding sites in Minnesota, check out my main website.

Warmly,

Pastor Tomkin Coleman
Minnesota Wedding Officiant

Notes on weddings at the Carlson Towers (Carlson Conservatory) in Minnetonka, MN

The Carlson Towers in Minnetonka, MN, is a beautiful site for an outdoor wedding, but it's hard to get a sense of what a site looks like from its publicity pictures. While you can check out my full review of using Carlson Towers for a wedding, here's some additional pictures and notes to help give you an idea of what the site is really like.


A gorgeous picture, eh? This view of the Carlson Towers won't actually be seen by the guests, though, because it's taken from the other side of the lake...your wedding will be by the lake, close to the towers. But the picture is a good one in that you can see what the Towers look like from the I-494 freeway, which is the way most Minneapolitans see Carlson Towers. Note that when you are having a wedding here, the landscaping creates a valley, so you can't see or hear the freeway, or even know it' s there. Yet Carlson Towers is right off of 394 and 494, so it's incredibly handy to get to from downtown Minneapolis, or from any western suburb of Minneapolis.



This is a nice view of the amphitheater...your wedding would be on that green circle, down by the water. You can see how chairs have been set up on the amphitheater steps. When you visit the site, most likely it won't be set up for a wedding, so you'll have to imagine the chairs. I've performed about ten wedding ceremonies here (so I'm very familiar with the site and it's unique characteristics), and I seem to remember that some weddings there have not had chairs...guests sat directly on the amphitheater steps, which worked fine (although chairs rented from Carlson Towers would be nicer, of course, but more expensive.)



You see where these wedding guests are, standing and chatting? This is where the bridal party, parents, and bride lines up for the processional, and then proceed down the stairs to the dais.



These are the stairs down to the dais. Some couples choose to get married right in the middle of the green, grassy site, with attendants on each side, while other couples choose to get married on the marble platform right in front of the green grass (then they don't have to step up onto the grass). Either choice is appropriate. Carson Tower's literature shows couples getting married on the marble, but most couples I've worked with choose to get married on the grassy site (it's just so dramatic that way.)



Here's the view you'll see as you're getting married. (Well, not quite...the shot is taken from a bit off to the side, but you get the idea. I took the photo from the side, so you could get an idea of how the steps go up straight for 8 steps, then you can head up to the building by either the right or the left staircase.) The Carlson Conservatory lobby is the round glass rotunda in the background.

• First you have your wedding on the grassy dias.
• Then, if the weather is warm, you have your cocktail hour on the marble deck (in this above picture, it's where these wedding guests are standing, behind the decorative fence.) Your cocktail hour is going on while you're greeting your guests (for instance, during your receiving line).
  
• Then your guests head inside the Rotunda for your wedding reception (after your wedding ceremony).

Setting up bridal flowers really shapes the space (you can see the two sets of flowers in front of the grassy dias.) The Carlson Conservatory is a gorgeous site, very park-like, but there are virtually no flowers on the grounds, it's all grass. If you want flowers at your wedding site, you have to hire a florist to bring them in. (Flowers are not necessary, but here you can get a sense of how nice they can be, making the space more festive.)



Here are some snapshots of the inside of the Towers, in the lobby where your wedding reception will take place (the Rotunda). If there was rain, the wedding would be indoors in this space (although weddings are rarely rained out in Minnesota summers...the state usually gets very short thunderstorms in the summer, not the all-day rain we get in the spring or fall.)

For more non-traditional wedding locations in Minnesota, check out my formal reviews on my website.

Warmly,

Rev. Tomkin Coleman
http://www.mnweddingminister.com

Notes for a McNamara Center wedding

I have performed many wedding ceremonies at the McNamara Center at the U of M and it’s a great site for wedding receptions in Minneapolis, plus they allow wedding ceremonies there. It’s often misspelled as the MacNamara Center of the University of Minnesota. You dont have to be an alumni of the U of M to rent the site for weddings. It’s an unusual spot, which has been declared a masterpiece of modern architecture. It’s beautiful inside with wood everywhere and 4-story high ceilings. The McNamara Alumni Center at the U of M is definitely one of the most unusual, non-traditional wedding sites in Minnesota, but it really works well, since it’s specially built for events. Not only is there plenty of space, but they have dressing rooms, a dance floor, and it’s in a prime location, as it’s right in the heart of the University area, within walking distance of Dinkytown.

Patrick Fitzgerald of D’Amico, who also caters wedding ceremonies for the Mill City museum is the person to contact. Patrick Fitzgerald at 612-238-4012 and his email is pfitzgerald@damico.com According to the McNamara website, site rental of the McNamara Alumni Center for weddings is $3,500, which includes the Johnson Great Room for the wedding ceremony, Memorial Hall for the wedding reception (for up to 7 hours), with access to rooms for photos 3 hours before guest arrival, a one-hour rehearsal (usually the night before, or the Thursday before. You also get the facility to yourselves, a dance floor, the built-in stage, custom set up, tables and chairs, two private dressing rooms for bridal party (one for the men, one for the women), two fireplaces, a University police officer for security, a wireless microphone for the officiant, a CD player for the wedding ceremony, music selections, several on-site event staff, plus the Heritage Gallery will be open.

You can even check their booking calendar online for availability, which is very handy. No other wedding ceremony site in Minnesota has this capability, except for Lake Harriet Spiritual Community church in Minneapolis (they rent out their Minneapolis wedding chapel for wedding ceremonies and receptions). The McNamara Center can also show you a 360 degree view of the interior on their website!

Little-known fact: The MacNamara Alumni Center is not only next door to the Radison Hotel, it’s connected by a tunnel. Perfect for wedding guests who don’t live in Minneapolis or St Paul, or simply don’t want to drive home after the wedding reception.

Having one main hotel right by the wedding can be great because then all the guests get to visit each other all weekend, instead of being isolated at different hotels. You can get special rates if you promise to book a certain number of rooms, plus you can get a special parking rate for your guests to park at the McNamara Center (even if they don’t stay at the hotel).

Below is a map to find this gorgeous (and unusual) wedding reception site in Minnesota:

Minnesota Weddings With Rev. Coleman - Home page

Alternate Site For Weddings at Forepaugh's in St Paul, MN

I've written before about holding wedding ceremonies at Forepaugh's Restaurant in St Paul, but I've never mentioned their OUTDOOR location, which is pretty amazing in warm weather.

Here's the exterior of Forepaugh's - a gorgeous mansion, which is also a great restaurant:


And here's one of the interior rooms, where wedding ceremonies are usually held:


For wedding ceremonies, the furniture is removed, and chairs are lined up in rows.



When the wedding ceremony is held in the room above, the bride usually enters down this staircase to the Processional music, meets her Escort (usually her father), who then escorts her into the room (through those double doors you see here), and then down the aisle to where the ceremony will be held (in front of the fireplace). Again, note the tables and chairs in that room will have been removed, and replaced with rows of chairs.

THIS wedding, however, was held in a different location at the restaurant. The wedding ceremony was held outside, on the port corche. Here's a view from outside the restaurant:


And here's the view from up on that roof, with chairs lined up, and and aisle for the wedding party to walk down:

Nice view, isn't it? A perfect Minnesota wedding ceremony site in warm weather, with a view of the St Paul skyline in the back, and off to the right was a view of St Paul's Irvine Park.

Afterwards, drinks were served for the cocktail hour:


And then the couple, their wedding party, and their guests were seated, and had an amazing meal for their wedding reception. Perfect!

Click here for more small wedding ceremony/reception sites in the Minneapolis, St Paul area.

Warm regards,
Rev. Tomkin Coleman
MN Wedding Minister

New Forepaugh's open for weddings

Forepaugh's Restaurant in St Paul has a new owner, but after performing another wedding ceremony here last weekend, i can report that the restaurant has the same wonderful style and charm it always had, and the new management is top-notch.

Most wedding ceremonies I've performed at Forepaugh's have been small, with about 10-15 guests (see review of small wedding ceremony sites in Minnesota), but this wedding had 25 guests, so it was held in the upper rooftop deck, on top of the porte-corchet (French for carport). The view was incredible, the staff was attentive, and the wedding was gorgeous.

I have a lot more pictures, and was going to write a much longer review, but this new blog host (Movable Type) has a very clumsy interface. Keep checking in - I may switch to a Blogger account soon!

Rev. Tomkin Coleman, Minneapolis/St Paul wedding minister

Notes on Wedding at the new Forepaugh's Restaurant in St Paul, MN

I have performed many wedding ceremonies at Forepaugh's restaurant in St Paul, MN, but it now has new owners. I've reviewed the restaurant in the past, but it may be different now.

Tomorrow, I'm performing a wedding ceremony with the new management - stay tuned for a review!

Rev. Tomkin Coleman - home page

Notes on Minnehaha Park for outdoor wedding ceremonies in Minneapolis

One of the best parts of getting married in a park is that the park will always be special to you. Whenever you walk around the lakes, you’ll stop at the Lake Harriet Rose Garden and remember your wedding day. Or whenever you go to the Walker Art Center, you’ll walk through the Sculpture Garden and all these memories about how you exchanged Vows will come back - even 30 or 50 years later. Other sites can’t match that kind of extended revisiting of memories.

Minneapolis outdoor wedding sites don’t permit chairs, though, so the wedding ceremony will have to be a bit more informal. For a 30 minute wedding ceremony, most Guests don’t mind standing up at all, and you can always bring in just a few chairs for the elderly (the Park Service doesn’t mind that…they just don’t want 200 chairs).

Rain is, surprisingly, not a big problem for Minnesota weddings in the outdoors. Most outdoor wedding ceremonies are held in the summer, and summer rain tends to be very quick. Sudden, localized thunderstorms are the norm in the summer, not rain that last all day. Of the hundreds of wedding ceremonies I’ve performed, only three have been rained out. In case of inclement weather, most brides set a time, such as noon the day of the wedding, by which they decide whether to have the wedding ceremony at the park or in the backup location, such as their wedding reception site.

A notable exception is Minnehaha Park, which has a roofed gazebo (one of the three rained-out weddings was held there). The gazebo can only hold 20-20 people at the most, but other Guests who have umbrellas can gather around, too. Renting an outdoor wedding location in Minneapolis is about $200.

The most important consideration is that the Bride is dry and doesn’t have to carry an umbrella!

Wedding ceremonies are usually held on the north side of the falls, but I have also performed wedding ceremonies on the south side on one of the small landings on the stairs (which is a dramatic setting, but will only fit 5-10 guests.

One wedding was at the Hiawatha statue just upstream of the Minnehaha Falls, and that site was picked because the couple were Native American and the statue had special meaning for them. Part of the “Song of Hiawatha” was read during the wedding ceremony.

There is also a pergola on the south side of the falls, and I’ve held wedding ceremonies there, but you can’t see the falls from that location.

Minnesota Weddings With Rev. Coleman - Home page

Notes on the James J Hill Library for wedding ceremonies

I was just at the James J Hill library for a photo shoot and the photographer remarked that she didn’t know that it was available for weddings. Sometimes a person has to be kind of “in-the-know” to know about more unusual wedding reception and ceremony sites in the Minneapolis and St Paul area, but I was surprised she didn’t know about the James J Hill Reference Library, which is one of the best.

There are two sides to the library - the regular public lending library, which is on the west side, and the Business Library on the east side of the building. The Business Library section is mainly a huge, grand hall with marble columns inside and 5 stories of books on the walls. The tables that are usually in the library are cleared out so that the entire hall is available for the wedding, as shown in the photo to the right.

Just a thought - The James J Hill Library overlooks Rice Park, is across the street from the Landmark Center, and next door to both the Saint Paul Hotel and the 319 Center. All of those sites are also available for wedding ceremonies and receptions, so taken all together, that small area sees more upscale weddings than any other spot in the Twin Cities area.

Minnesota Weddings With Rev. Coleman - Home page

Notes on Gale Mansion for wedding ceremonies

I love performing wedding ceremonies at the Gale Mansion, (full review of the mansion, plus other mansion wedding sites in MN), which is right across the street from the park in front of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Their address is 2115 Stevens Avenue South.

Anyway, I was meeting with a couple this week who are getting married at the Gale Mansion and they posed some questions that I had never been asked before:

• Does anyone ever get married in the park across the street, then have the reception at the Gale Mansion?

  • The name of the park is Washburn Fair Oaks Park, and while it is beautiful, the lawn that the Gale Mansion has is so perfect for outdoor weddings in Minneapolis that I’ve only heard of couples using the mansion’s lawn for weddings. It’s perfect because it’s got such a nice porch landing, and a beautiful wrought-iron gate around the lawn, with a gate opening that’s perfect for the Processional. The whole arrangement works really well, and then when the Bride and Groom exit, they can head towards the south entrance and set up for a Recieving Line, either in front of the west entrance to the mansion, or right inside.

  • Do people usually have inside or outside weddings at the Gale Mansion in Minneapolis?

    • I’ve found it to be about half and half. Either choice works really well (much like the St Paul College Club in St Paul), and if you have it outside, you have a perfect rain location

  • If we can’t have the rehearsal at the Gale Mansion, can we hold it elsewhere?

    • This is actually a pretty common question. Yes, you can have the rehearsal at your home, or your parent’s home, or the ballroom of a hotel, or anywhere else. It actually works pretty well, as the main points we’re working on is what the cues are, the order of the elements, and where people are standing in relation to each other. Rehearsals tend to work best if they are two nights before the wedding (although the night before the wedding works pretty well, too…although it can be a lot of stimulus the night before your big day). You can, of course, have the rehearsal the same day as the wedding, but most couples find that this arrangement is packing a whole lot into one day.

Minnesota Weddings With Rev. Coleman - Home page

Notes on the Mill City Museum for Weddings

A new Minnesota wedding reception site that is also appropriate for wedding ceremonies is the Mill City Museum in downtown Minneapolis, which is at 704 South 2nd Street, right by the new Guthrie Theater. Pictured above is the Ronald William Guzy Mill Commons, which holds 220 wedding guests.

D’Amico caters the events and handles all the booking for weddings.

The person to call to rent the museum for a wedding ceremony and reception is Patrick Fitzgerald at 612-238-4012 and his email is pfitzgerald@damico.com Patrick is a great guy - very friendly, knowledgeable, and easy to work with.

This wedding reception site is definitely unconventional, but for some couples, that’s perfect. In the winter, the Mill City Museum hosts weddings in their big main entrance hall, which has gorgeous columns and high ceilings. Most weddings, though, are held outside in their Charles H. Bell Ruin Courtyard (pictured to the right), which holds 130 guests for a wedding reception.

The Mill City Museum courtyard overlooks the Mississippi River and St Anthony Falls, plus Riverplace and St Anthony Main is across the river. The picture to the right shows the museum and was taken right beside the falls at the lock and dam.

The site rental fee for weddings at the Mill City Museum is $1500 for Saturdays in the summer, plus $350 if the courtyard is used.

The closest hotel is the Holiday Inn Metrodome, which is right up Washington Ave, across 35W.

Warm regards,

Rev. Tomkin Coleman
Minneapolis Wedding Officiant