Crowne Plaza Riverfront St. Paul

The Crowne Plaza Riverfront Hotel was a beautiful setting for my reception. We were in the Great River Ballroom which was the perfect size for our 300 guests. Everyone fit comfortably and the view is FABULOUS! The food was tremendous. I was a little leery of offering steak as an option thinking "how could they prepare 200 steak meals and not overcook them." I heard from numerous people how tasty the food was and how the steak was cooked perfectly! The coordinator I worked with was extremely helpful and easy to get in touch with. Despite being a bit pricey, as is expected with weddings these days, I couldn't be more pleased with the service provided.

I'm not personally having my reception here, but my cousin did and he had a BEAUTIFUL wedding here! The only downside to it was that since he invited SOOOO many people that he had a really big ballroom and it was so big you couldn't really mingle around and see everyone you wanted to see!

It took my mother a while to accept the idea that I was divorcing my first husband, and then it took her a while longer to like Taven (even though there was almost a seven year gap between the divorce and my meeting Taven). Once my mother met him, she loved him. He is such a nice guy, with such a big heart, and I think my mother knew right away that he would make an amazing father. Which was probably why her present to us was the honeymoon suite at the Crown Plaza. I had been to weddings there before, and had snuck into some rooms, and they are awesome! The room my mother had got for us was even better. There was flowers and champagne waiting for us, and room service even brought us hot chocolate. Everything about the place is swift and quick and efficient. My mother, who is usually very sweet and subtle, told me right before Taven and I left the restaurant for the hotel that she wanted more grandchildren.

When I first told my mother that I was getting married, she suggested the Crown Plaza right away. I brushed off the idea, but once Pat and I started counting the number of guests we would have, and when I started looking at venues and thinking about things like caterers and chairs and tents, Crown Plaza was easy to agree to. It was a bit more that I had originally budgeted for, but both our parents offered to help pay with the cost. The first time I went to the Plaza to inquire how the celebration would pan out, I thought the place was beautiful. The hall was empty at the time, but they were able to describe exactly how it would look. They were also very accommodating with the menu (we have lots of friends who are vegetarians). We went buffet style, but also had these amazing little hors d’oeuvres, and upon my request we were able to have fresh fruit along with cake for dessert.

We were able to whisk away at 2am to our wedding suite! This was really beautiful, and our friends and family had rented the room for us until Monday, so we were able to stay in bed until we needed to go to the airport for our honeymoon.

The Crowne Plaza is a beautiful space with a lot of opportunity. Molly is a phenomenal event planner and knows a TON about reception planning. Some things to know going into it: the room minimums are very high and do not include taxes. We fell short just a few hundred dollars and we would have purchased some more bottles of wine or appetizers had we known but we were not informed of our shortage until after the event. Also, you are required to use their lighting vendor and they charged a very high price. In the end, though, it was BEAUTIFUL and the food was good. Plus, they are willing to bargain on hotel room prices. I would use them again for another event, but I would want to be better informed of the not-hidden-but-hard-to-find extra costs.

Dan’s brother’s gift to the two of us was a weekend stay in the Honeymoon suite in the Crown Plaza, in downtown St-Paul after the wedding. We knew about this maybe one week before the wedding date, and I think it came about because everyone found out we were just going to go home after the dinner. Dan and I have been living together for almost seven years now, and since our ‘honeymoon’ was scheduled in august, we thought it seemed logical to just go home. Upon his brother’s insistence, we packed an overnight bag, and at the end of the dinner he drove us to the hotel. I had never stayed there before, I never stayed at any hotels in the Twin Cities, so it was actually really fun! Our room was wonderful, and I fell asleep as soon as I put my head on the pillow. The next morning we got to have a honeymoon breakfast in bed, with champagne, and Dan ordered some beers from room service and we spent the next two nights sleeping and watching television and ordering room service. It was more relaxing than the actual honeymoon.

I loved this hotel!! (We spent our wedding night here). They had a gorgeous suite that we stayed in and even had a shuttle to the airport with free parking while we were gone. It made the weddinf night and honeymoon week very hassle-free as we didn’t have to worry about the car situation and getting dropped off or picked up. We really enjoyed our night here and would definitely consider going back the next time we fly out of MSP!