Gale Mansion Reviews
Reviews
We're all about trust. Our community relies on honest reviews to help you make those big decisions with ease.
-
Featured
![Alyssa]()
Alyssa Sent on 08/29/2022An absolutely beautiful venue!!
An absolutely beautiful venue!! Highly recommended for your wedding day!!
My (now) husband and I first visited the Gale Mansion a couple weeks after our engagement, towards the end of October 2021. At that time, we first met with the coordinator, and then were given a tour of the beautiful and elegant mansion. Immediately, we were impressed with how classy and sophisticated the mansion looked. When we left, we both felt this could be the right place for our reception. Not that long after touring, my (now) husband and I made it official and booked the Gale Mansion as our venue for our reception!
Over the past 10 months, leading up to our wedding day, we had meetings with the coordinator to go over our timeline and check things off our to-do list. Our questions were always answered in a timely manner and the coordinator was exceptional to work with, as she made things easy and stress free for our special day!
Our wedding took place in mid-August 2022 and using the Gale Mansion for our place to get ready, as well as our cocktail hour and reception was truly PERFECT! All the bridesmaids and groomsmen enjoyed getting ready in the bridal suite and the groom’s room. Also, we were able to bring in hair and makeup artists so all the ladies could be in the same room to get ready together, which allowed for lots of time for us all to talk and catch up! After our church ceremony, guests arrived at the Gale Mansion for a lovely cocktail hour on the main level. Guests truly enjoyed walking around the different rooms. After cutting the cake on the main level by the beautiful fireplace, everyone moved downstairs to the gorgeous ballroom area for the dinner and dance. Lastly, the Gale Mansion was terrific in helping to tear down all of our décor, as well as saving our gifts and other personal items for us to pick up the following day after our wedding.
Overall, my husband and I had an amazing wedding day thanks to the coordinator, and all of the staff at the Gale Mansion. Truly a WONDERFUL experience and would definitely recommend! -
Jennifer Sent on 06/08/2021
Beautiful Wedding Venue
We had our wedding here in May 2021, and everything went great! Karen was a pleasure to work with! She was very responsive, and always answered all my questions! Even with special request for COVID precautions, she did a great job accommodating. I would definitely recommend Gale Mansion for your next wedding or other special event. Staff onsite the day of were all wonderful as well! -
-
![Grace]()
Grace Sent on 10/02/2019Loved Gale Mansion for our wedding!
I had my wedding at Gale Mansion and I am SO happy we went with it. The inside is beautiful, the outside gorgeous. The director of catering, office manager and staff were such a pleasure to work with and on top of their game. The food was INCREDIBLE as well. All our guests were fed with top notch meals. Thank you Chef!
All in all, there's nothing about the mansion I would have changed. Thank you for housing the most beautiful day I have ever seen. -
![Sarah]()
Sarah Sent on 06/26/2013We had our Ceremony and Reception here last November. The food was FANTASTIC! We ended up having appetizers being passed around for the meal. I received so many compliments on the food.. not to mention the atmosphere at the mansion. Very intimate & romantic. The unique historical feel to the mansion cannot be duplicated. -
![Angie]()
Angie Sent on 10/18/2011We had an absolute BLAST at our wedding (as did our friends and family!). The ONLY reason we left out a star on quality of service was that they ran out of one of our food choices for guests even though we had given them the numbers for each meal. Otherwise the quality of the food, cupcakes, and service was fantastic. Sarah was also super helpful the day of and we didn't have to worry about a thing. Get married here, you won't regret it. (It's like a house party!) -
![Penguin8]()
Brenna Sent on 10/07/2008The Gale Mansion provided a comfortable and classy location for our wedding and reception. They have in-house catering, and we received tons of compliments on the food. I had the butternut squash ravioli and was quite satisfied. I appreciated their assistance with set-up and tear-down, though I wish we'd been able to stay longer (party was over at 11:45pm). The space was a perfect size for our group (120 people). I appreciated that they had multiple options on several things, like the types of chairs for the outdoor ceremony, and let us hang things outside. They did charge for every little thing (microphone inside and out, etc.), so our estimated cost was a few hundred below our actual cost, and since we booked the location over a year ahead of time, the food cost went up from our initial contract. All in all, however, I found it to be a great personal staff who promptly responded to emails and there was no drama with any of the services on the night of the big event. And, as a bonus, since it's such a beautiful building, we had mininmal decorations, just flowers on the tables and a fabric swag outside. -
![Amanda]()
Amanda Sent on 06/30/2009The Gale Mansion is gorgeous! However, the staff at the Gale is not so gorgeous. At first, the assistant coordinator, Lindsay (No longer there) was very helpful and prompt. At our last meeting, we met with the head coordinator, Angela at the Gale. Angela was not friendly and unaware of what we've already planned months and months before. Even if the assistant didn't give or any records to view, that shouldn't happen. I have saved all of my emails with the Gale and with Lindsay with records what we wanted for our wedding. At our final meeting, Angela should have been aware. In fact before our last meeting I had sent an email to Lindsay's preparing what we wanted and confirming times and Angela was the one who responded. She should have known. The meeting was a waste of our time and we felt unsure about having our event there.
The wedding day arrived. Again, Angela was not welcoming nor friendly. At the time of planning, I was told (and at the last meeting) that we could only invite 120 people for the ceremony. On the day of the wedding, I walked in and Angela pointed at extra chairs for the 150 guest count which was after the ceremony. I was furious! Not only I was unaware that I could have invited some our guests to the ceremony and how dumb it looked that we had all those seats and none of them were used!
After the wedding, I was told not only by my husband but also by my family members that the 35 dollars an hour security guard was hitting on our guests and talking about the drugs he does. In the meanwhile not looking after the building. You would think a beautiful mansion like the Gale would have more professional personnel however that is not the case.
I would only recommend the Gale if there was different management and staff. Otherwise it was a beautiful place. -
![Ellen]()
Ellen Sent on 12/27/2025Think twice
I would seriously think twice about booking at the Gale Mansion.
Unless you are hiring your own outside full-time wedding planner or day-of-coordinator, I think its best to work with a more professional venue with a full staff. Most of the reviews you see for Gale are years old and before the property was sold and gained new management. Now, there seems to be only one person there who doesn’t appear to have any experience in weddings.
The communication is extremely poor. After I booked, I would go months at a time without getting any response from them. In the weeks leading up to my wedding, I hadn’t heard from them in over a month despite repeated emails and phone calls. Eventually, since I don’t live in state, a family member had to show up at the venue and wait for someone to arrive so that she could explain that my wedding was just weeks out and that we needed various things from them.
Even when we did get in touch, we drafted our own mock up of the dining room and table arrangement, I created my own schedule of the day, communicated with each vendor about when they should arrive and who they should contact, and more. We ended up renting separate linens and other items that were supposed to get through our booking with Gale because we weren’t sure if they would be able to deliver.
They require that you get your catering through the venue, but then canceled our tasting after we flew in for it and subsequently canceled the catering altogether and told us to get outside vendor. This was maybe four or five months out from the wedding and many vendors were booked. I did ask or a partial refund at that time but was denied. While extremely stressful, if you do host your wedding at Gale I highly recommend getting an outside caterer. Fork & Flair were life savers—not only was the food amazing and reasonably priced, but they were the only professionals helping during my reception.
Fork and Flair absolutely went above and beyond—when someone broke a vase during cocktail hour, it was the servers who found a broom to clean it up. I was later told that at times no Gale Mansion staff were at the venue at all during the wedding, leaving my vendors to fend for themselves. I’m not sure how the reception would have gone without them.
When we finally did get a hold of the venue in the days leading up to my wedding, I asked about their coordination—as they promote and told us a DOC comes with the venue when you book—but was told they really don’t help decorate, or much else leading up to the wedding. I had all the final calls with my vendors without the mansion and planned the entire day myself. And then, I also had to bring in outside help to lay the flowers, light candles and more since the mansion refused to help with that.
Moreover, when we arrived to set up the day before the wedding (something that was difficult to set up—they repeatedly offered to give us only an hour) I found that we had to pull everything out or storage and set it up ourselves. Myself and my family set up all the tables and chairs, laid the linens and more. I do not think it would’ve gotten done if I hadn’t persistently insisted they let us come the day before and for several hours.
I will say, it is a beautiful and historic venue. And it is more affordable than some others in the Twin Cities, but that’s essentially because the extent of what they offer is the space and unlocking the doors. We did save money by hosting our wedding there, they allowed us to get in early to use the suites upstairs to get ready. And my guests were able to spread it out since we had the entire mansion to ourselves and we had it for the entire day (which was unique as compared with other venues). That being said, I’m not sure if I’d do it again.
Even after the wedding, my family was set to go back the next day to clean up and to grab the rented linens and decor we’d bought. They were told two different times to arrive by two separate staff members. When they’d arrived everything was dumped on the floor, some things were broken and they were unsure they retrieved it all.
Overall, it’s a beautiful place and I really treasure the day and the photos but I cannot express how much more stressful wedding planning was made by hosting it at Gale. They are impossible to get a hold of, and they can’t deliver the services they advertise—or even the ones they require you to partake in (like catering). If you’ve booked here I would hire someone fast, or be prepared to treat planning like your full time job.
Are you interested?
Are you interested?