Irvine Park

The park itself is just so stunning and is beautiful in the spring and summer. It was easy to reserve the park by calling the park board. The hard part about using the park though is it’s still a public park so anyone can still be there. I was a little worried they wouldn't get the fountain turned on in time because the Thursday before our wedding the fountain still wasn’t turned on, even thought they said it would be. I was happily surprised when we arrived at the park on Friday for our rehearsal and the fountain was on. There were lots of kids there taking pictures in front of the fountain for prom though so it was hard to have a rehearsal. Also, the flower pots surrounding the fountain hadn't been potted with flowers yet so we bought baskets of flowers at Costco and stuck them in the pots. It’s the responsibility of the neighboring community to plant the flowers and it hadn’t been done by the day of our wedding but the flowers we put in the pots looked nice and we took them out after the ceremony and had them outside of our house all summer.

Brock and I eloped in my hometown of Duluth a few months after he proposed in 2007. We sort of decided that this was something that we wanted to do, on Madeline Island. We knew, though, that we wouldn’t get away without having a party and a ceremony for all our family and friends. We reached the agreement that we would get ‘married’ in one of the parks near where Brock and I lived. After we agreed with our families about a park wedding reception, we knew we needed to get the ball rolling. We contacted the city right away, found when the park would be available, and then booked it for the entire day. We were hoping that we would be able to hold the reception at the park, which we were. The wedding ceremony took place on the gazebo, where Brock stood with his parents and best men, and I stood with my parents and bridesmaids. The same priest was there also, he was a family friend and didn’t mind the drive down. Friends and other family members, about a hundred and twenty in all, gathered round and listened as we exchanged vows again. We tried to speak loud enough for everyone to hear us, but if there had been more people, then maybe a microphone could have helped.

The park was a perfect location for the party, which we made into more of a cocktail party following the reception. We had ordered tables and chairs, and had a tent put up just in case it did rain. The thing about having a wedding party in a park is that everyone is so much more relaxed. It’s less formal, and I think people mingled more because there were less social constraints. It’s also a wonderful place for wedding photos, and Brock and I had some really beautiful pictures of us at the fountain, leaning against the gazebo, playing peek-a-boo with the trees. Brock and his friends started up a football game. It was a day where something good happened in nature, and we loved seeing everyone out enjoying the day with us.

I have two pieces of advice for renting a park site for the ceremony site. First, they get booked up fast. We knew this, and we made sure that we were there on the first day they were opened in January to get a park site. We knew about all the parks and had made a list of our favorite sites just in case our first or second choice was no longer available. We were also prepared to change the time of our wedding if we could only get a noon or late afternoon spot. Second, it really helps if you’re a resident of St-Paul, because otherwise you have to wait an extra month before you can book a place. Maybe you can get a friend who lives in St-Paul to book it for you. It’s really inexpensive to get a park site for a few hours, and we choose Irvine park because there is a gazebo there just in case it rains. It’s beautiful, the parks are really well taken care of, and it was exactly where Eva and I wanted to say our vows to each other.