Day Block Building or Theodore Wirth Chalet?

luckygirlk

We are considering both for our ceremony and reception for a winter wedding.  Can anyone tell me anything about either one? Thanks!!

newlyseliski

I'd recommend the Day Block Building because it looks like they have a lot more reasonable catering/liquor options.. aka... open to any licensed vendor.  The only extra cost appears to be that you'd need to pay for all the tables and chairs.

My fiance and I are having our reception at Columbia Manor in NE Mpls (also a Mpls Parks and Rec facility with the same catering and liquor vendors) and after we booked the space, we discovered that the food and liquor were ridiculously expensive.  They only have one liquor vendor and four caterers to choose from.  While I love the caterer we ended up with, it still ended up costing $3-4,000 more than we probably would have ended up paying had we gone to a place with open catering and got to choose our own.  That said... we're inviting a lot of people and probably far more than could comfortably fit in the space... so I'd imagine that pricing would be a lot more reasonable if we had more around 125-150 people.

Good luck with your decision!  They're both beautiful spaces.

geb001

I had looked into the Theodore Wirth Chalet - it's beautiful inside and out but wasn't big enough for us.  Make sure you tour it and ask about how many people it can seat and where, some of the seating might have to be in a different room depending on your reception size. 

I think the caterer choices are fine, I've heard good things about Chow Girls.  It is hard that you have to use Prom Catering for the liquor.  I called them twice to have the menus emailed to me and it never happened, and then my mom called and they sent it right to her.  Moral of the story: if you don't like who you are working with, ask to be transfered to another person at Prom Catering.  Ask about fees too, they have some fees that they waive if you book the food through them but you have to pay the fees if you only use them for alcohol.  Good luck!

Steph0871

We toured Theodore Wirth... it was gorgeous, but I didn't like that it was open to the public.  Meaning, our guests would be competing with anyone else who wanted to go skiing, etc. that day.

pcslindsers06

I'm using Day Block and I LOVE it! the flexibility is really great (regarding catering and alcohol) and I really like having the freedom to do pretty much whatever I want. The site you choose should reflect how much work you want to put into planning it... at Day Block you would have to take care of pretty much everything, whereas at Theo Wirth there are more restrictions (which might actually be helpful when it comes to having to make catering etc decisions). too many options does not work well for some people!