Paikka is a beautiful clean slate, perfect for making your wedding exactly how you want it to be! From allowing you to bring in your own vendors and decor, to providing the beautiful custom wood reception tables and chairs, this venue is absolutely fantastic! Although it seems fairly pricey for the rental fee, their allowance to bring in your own caterer and bartenders actually brings the cost down to much less than other venues around the area. They know how to do weddings and we are so glad we went with them!

PAIKKA was amazing. The venue itself has a clean, industrial, modern look to it with fun areas around it to take pictures. We didn’t pay for the outdoor space but were still able to open their garage doors and have people go outside (we just could set anything up on their patio). The best part of PAIKKA was that we could bring any vendors we wanted without any additional charges. This saved us a LOT of money and let us have a lot of small touches that made the wedding unique to us. Liz (the venue director) was great to work with! Super friendly, organized and helpful.

We loved the vibe that PAIKKA had the moment we toured the space. It was exactly what we were looking for in a venue for our winter wedding. Having both spaces (separated by the most amazing doors) created room for our guests to spread out and mingle. Lake Monster Brewery down the hall was also the perfect place for my now husband and I to escape and have a beer (just the two of us) after our ceremony. PAIKKA’s staff are extremely helpful and provided solutions to all the ideas we had for the space — It was also great to bring in our own catering, bartending, lightening, etc. with suggestions from the knowledgeable staff. Thanks again!

I loved having our wedding at PAIKKA. The space is absolutely beautiful and you are awarded so much flexibility to choose any licensed vendors you'd like to work with. I would definitely recommend this venue!

We loved holding our celebration at Paikka. The space is uber flexible. The venue is amazing. The memories are priceless.

Working with PAIKKA great. The space was beyond anything I could have imagined for the day. The lighting, texture, decor etc. The staff were so responsive and provided answers to the millions of questions I had leading up to the wedding! One thing I would suggest is that PAIKKA have lighting options available in house. We wanted the cafe lights we saw during our tour and later learned they were an additional $800 to rent. It would be so nice if Paikka had them available for an additional rental cost, and even more wonderful if they were less than $800. It is also helpful to know that you are essentially just renting the room. Lots of other venues offer a little more hands on support for the event - helping with the flow of the event, making suggestions for first look locations, assisting with timing or how things can be arranged, someone available to help with the set up and night before/day of, but PAIKKA does not offer any of those services. Its really a do every single thing yourself or hire someone outside. Would be nice to have someone that knows the space really well and have seen how weddings can flow there helping in the process. Again, such a phenomenal venue but a little more in-house services would be great!

We loved working with Angie & Marlo, they were super great and we loved their vision for PAIKKA. Everything went pretty smoothly although there were a few communication hiccups when switching over their business platforms. Day of things went pretty well except for the staff person there that day was hard to find throughout set up and the night. Whenever we needed lights adjusted or doors opened/closed, we would have to search throughout the building to find her, or to remind her to do it again. It took quite awhile to get the lights turned down to dance which was a dance vibe killer. Overall, its a gorgeous space and it all flowed very well. Loved being able to have the ceremony outside.

We loved everything about the space, its so beautiful and every detail was thought of by the owners, they have amazing taste. We had a day-of coordinator and having that person there made Paikka a great option, there is a lot to coordinate in the space, but with a little help it makes an amazing wedding venue.

The venue was super cool! Everyone was raving about how it looked and the gif booth they offered! You do, however, need to bring everything in and therefore is more expensive than the given price by them. Make sure you are prepared for all set up and tear down as well. Other than that, it was great and I loved every minute of my wedding there!

A very nice venue with some unique touches. We met with Marlo and found her to be a very sharp, real person who won us over. We booked the venue 5 months before the wedding with the money I had inherited when my grandmother passed away two months earlier. After a month, circumstances altered and a change in venue was unavoidable. We promptly cancelled our hold, so as to give Paikka as much time as possible to rebook the venue.

Angela, Marlo's partner, maintained communication with us from that point forward. Most of her email replies took days. Her messages were terse and her commitment to holding onto our 50% deposit was surprisingly steadfast. We had to lobby carefully and politely to even get her to agree to return our money if someone booked the venue for the night we originally had.

We worked to spread positive word about Paikka and convince our contacts to consider booking them, all the while receiving no support, empathy or kindness from Marlo or Angie. Four months went by and Paikka never booked that evening. When pressed, they maintained that they had to turn away two interested parties during the four weeks we had them booked. I don't know whether that is the truth or not, but the chances seemed very unlikely to us.

Unfortunately, our recommendation is not to book Paikka. They walk by the letter of their contract and their $1500 non-refundable deposit is unreasonable. There are plenty of other, magical venues in the Twin Cities area whose management are amicable, flexible and understanding.

If you really want to book them, I'd take a close look at their contract and try to negotiate it to be more favorable to you should something unforeseen happen. If they won't budge, and you still decide to book them, if something goes wrong and you have to move your venue or cancel the event, you might as well not even bother to let them know.