Vadnais Heights Commons

My best best friend chose this place as her wedding venue. Since I wasn't familiar with Vandnais heights, I didn't really know what to expect. It turned out to be a really beautiful building with multiple rooms, tons of windows and a beautiful outdoor area for wedding photos. It was definitely spacious enough for a large wedding party with plenty of room to spare! They also had adequate seating for all the reception guests that showed up after the vows with an enormous dance floor. The only thing I really disliked was the total disregard from management. They had promised my friend that they would put up window shades to block out the sun so the ceremony would be more intimate (she put down a $500 deposit) As soon as we noticed the shades were not assembled, we contacted them. They completely denied ever receiving any deposit and dismissed us in a very rude fashion. They didn't even attempt or offer to fix the issue. I found that to be super tasteless and unprofessional. Not sure I would recommend this place after reading previous reviews.

Great location for large events. Have used it many time for business and it always has weddings planned. Highly professional location with a great staff that helps and is very understanding.

I don't even know where to begin with my terrible experience working with the coordinator at this venue, Lorah. First, I will start off by saying this is an absolutely beautiful venue, and I wish that my experience had gone a lot more smoothly. It probably would have, had I gone with another coordinator. When we first met with Lorah, we loved her energy, and thought we were going to have a wonderful time working with her. They require a separate hired event coordinator to be present for a minimum of 2 hours [along with some other odd requirements/fees], and Lorah suggested we hire her for ours. Throughout our planning process, she was great to work with. Until we got closer to the day of. She mixed up my rehearsal date, and when I corrected her, she would always come up with an excuse such as she had scheduled something else for us that day (when we had never discussed anything else). A few days before my wedding, she told me to decide if we were going to have an indoor or outdoor ceremony because there was rain in the forecast. But I had been checking all week and there was no rain in sight. I had to make sure she had the right date set for our wedding after all of these mix ups. Maybe she has taken on a bit too much, or was overwhelmed, but I wasn't the only one who felt she was a bit unorganized and flakey. A few of my other vendors who had met with her ahead of time felt the same way about Lorah.Fast forward to our wedding day. I had paid for early access at 9am. We arrived on time, and unloaded everything, and were only able to get into the building because our decorator was already there. Otherwise, we would have been waiting outside the building for Lorah to let us in. She asked me many details which we had already gone over during our final meeting a couple weeks prior, and I felt extremely overwhelmed and upset that I had to deal with all of these questions on top of getting myself ready for the wedding day. Every time I sat down, I felt that I was being pulled aside by her for questions, and I was stressed out before my day even started. She also told me her only responsibilities that morning were to set up our place cards, and a few frames in the shadow boxes, and everything else she did as a kind gesture. But we had hired her to be there for 3 hours, and I have worked on a lot of weddings myself. Most coordinators will do whatever they can to help out and help ease any stress, but she complained about anything else she helped me with in addition to the place cards and picture frames. My bridesmaids had to step in and help with a lot of details because we had such a tough time tracking her down all morning.What frustrated me the most, was that she got our table numbers completely wrong. I had sent her an updated chart a few days before our wedding to accommodate for last minute RSVPs. She responded and told me "No Problem," but on the day of, she went with the old chart I sent her, and tables were completely mixed up. Our families weren't together, and guests were surrounded by other tables they didn't even know. For anyone getting married, you know the seating chart is one of the most difficult parts of wedding planning, and even though I spent days working on our seating chart, it was completely rendered useless because she didn't use the correct version. We had elderly family members who thought we didn't save a seat for them, and it reflected extremely poorly on me and my husband, and we received all the backlash for her mistake.After our wedding, I sent her an email expressing how disappointed I was with the way things went on our wedding day, hoping she would take ownership for these mistakes, apologize, and learn from it. But instead, she listed every single thing that went wrong on my wedding day and blamed me and my bridesmaids for all of it. She even claimed that I copied her daughter's wedding design, and that my wedding was 100% her vision. In her words exactly, she claimed I mimicked her daughter's wedding design except she used higher end linens, better floral design, an up-scaled photo booth. She also told me that her "daughter's wedding would be impossible for someone to "mimic exactly" however it was the impetus of [my] wedding design."I was appalled and shocked by her response. Lorah and I never discussed any design details together, and I had created my wedding vision with our decorator, Michele. I even created a PDF that I sent all of our vendors so that they could be on the same page. None of them included ideas from her. I was simply trying to let her know why I was disappointed with her services on our wedding day, and instead of apologizing for her mistakes, she attacked me, and I saw how truly unprofessional and petty she could be.Again, this venue is beautiful. Our decorator, caterer, florist, and all of our other vendors were fabulous. But do yourself a favor, find another coordinator who will actually help out on your wedding day instead of causing stress

VHC is hands down the BEST VALUE for a wedding venue in the Twin Cities. Trust me, I did all the research and this place was phenomenal. I got so many compliments on the venue; people were absolutely floored by the facility. My fiancé and I really wanted a venue that was private, had outdoor space and was naturally beautiful. We also didn't want to have to worry about capacity issues with our fluctuating guest list, and I knew with this place we wouldn't have to deal with the stress of bumping up against maximum capacity issues (it's incredibly spacious). They also have vendor recommendations that they have fully vetted that are all fantastic (and economical!). This takes a lot of work out of finding, vetting and securing high quality vendors (caterer, DJ, decorator, etc.).And as if the venue wasn't amazing enough on its own (it is), Lorah Palmer - your main point of contact - is outstanding. I cannot stress this enough, but if you have not planned a wedding before (the norm), you need someone on your team who knows what they are doing. Lorah is that person and then some; she is an absolute pro with countless years of experience. I know other reviews rave about Lorah, but let me tell you this: the fact that she is included in the venue cost is simply PRICELESS. I would have happily paid twice as much as we paid for the experience of working with Lorah (and we were on a tight budget). Everything from meeting with us throughout the wedding planning process as many times as we wanted to working with our cake vendor who happened to have "no record of our cake order" (Lorah had a beautiful cake there within an hour and had the company issue us a gift card that more than covered the cake), Lorah's involvement in our wedding planning and big day helped both the groom and I fully enjoy our engagement and bid day stress free. I always knew everything was in good hands, and that was absolutely priceless.Book VHC for your big day - you will NOT be disappointed!