McNamara Alumni Center

The PERFECT venue!

I worked with the WONDERFUL coordinators at McNamara for about 10 months and over the course of my engagement there was not one slip up or missed detail on their part. They are incredible! Not only are they wonderful as people, but they are great at their jobs providing top... Read More notch service and communication. This venue has so much to offer with beautiful architectural design, fabulous staff, food that is to die for, and much much more! I don't have a single complaint and highly recommend this beautiful modern venue.

The venue is beautiful, and they work well with you to make it unique to your needs. The staff is flexible, cheerful and accommodating. They were a joy to work with and made this portion of planning extremely smooth. They were on top of our details, and made sure we thought of... Read More everything. From our first contract signing to end of the night cleanup, we had absolutely no complaints, only praises.

Fantastic!

Our wedding at the McNamara Alumni Center was phenomenal. The food was amazing, the service was wonderful, and for $14,000 and 150 guests, I'd say that's a pretty good deal.

Last Minute Lifesavers!

McNamara Alumni Center was a TRUE lifesaver in throwing our wedding! Our original venue flooded just weeks before our wedding and we had to find an alternative. We were so lucky that McNamara just happened to have availability when they usually book years in advance! We worked... Read More with both Kim and Alaina and they were beyond amazing while helping us throw together a new wedding in just weeks! Everything was so incredible and the day was more perfect that we could have ever dreamed! Thank you McNamara!!

Beautiful venue!

We recently had our wedding in the Johnson room at the McNamara and our reception was in Memorial Hall. We absolutely love this place! We fell in love with the architecture and knew we had to have our wedding here. In the Johnson room we had candles on all the ledges with... Read More yellow flowers accenting the aisle-way. It was a beautiful ceremony. We also had a reader, a vocalist/guitarist, the DJ, a wine box ceremony and a wedding party of 12 (counting us). It was the perfect size and felt intimate even though we had about 165 people. Then we had the cocktail hour/dinner/dance in Memorial hall. Heritage gallery was also open to the wedding party during cocktail hour and we also had a kids room which they absolutely loved! In Memorial hall we had cafe lighting as well as some uplighting by the cake/presents/bar area. We also had some fun gobo lighting on the walls of the Mcnamara for the dance to make it more fun. There were also candles in the water feature. We had yellow centerpiece flowers of two different heights which looked great in the room and we had a rock theme too (rock table #'s, stacked rocks for table decorations in addition to the flowers and rocks that held peoples name cards, rocks people signed as a guestbook). The rock theme worked perfectly with the venue. The people at the McNamara were also great to work with. They walk you through every stage and you always get updated seating charts and timelines so you are all on the same page. They also met with my lighting group and DJ to help answer questions. They are very friendly and receptive to helping you. In fact when our pastor bailed on the rehearsal the day before, they stepped in and ran through the rehearsal with the wedding party so we still got to practice. It was much appreciated and helped relieve some stress! I highly recommend this place. It is a bit spendy with the catering from D'Amico but people keep talking about how great it was and how beautiful it was. In addition, our photos are great and we are getting a 40 x 60 canvas of us outside the venue at night with a little rain on us. We couldn't have had such great photos without the great setting. Also, the commons hotel is good to book if you pick this place (more great photo opportunities). You will feel very special if you have your wedding here. Ours truly felt magical!

Everything was Amazing!

McNamara was simply amazing! Their staff was friendly and helpful and really knew their stuff. The service was out of this world. Truly for what you pay, you get so much. I am an event coordinator for a living and they knocked my socks off and made for a stress free wedding,... Read More that people just raved about. I would reccomd McNamara to anyone looking for a stunning wedding venue.

GORGEOUS

McNamara is an incredibly gorgeous place to have your wedding. The staff was accommodating to my every need, and bent over backwards to make my day perfect. The whole operation ran smoothly and I could not have been more happy with my decision!

Couldn't have been better

We had a great experience from start to finish. Well worth the money.

An amazing wedding venue

Our wedding was perfect and went accordingly as planned! And I couldn't have asked for better staff!

Great venue

We got so many compliments on the Memorial Hall in the McNamara. It is a great place for a larger group.

Beautiful Venue

My husband actually found our venue, and he knew I would like it right away. We had our ceremony and reception at the McNamara, something our guests really liked. We have breathtaking pictures of our ceremony. The staff at the McNamara was very helpful with all of the planning,... Read More and accommodated all of our requests. Would recommend.

McNamara is fantastic!

The McNamara Alumni Center was amazing! The staff were fantastic and extremely helpful! They were always available to answer my questions and willing to be flexible to the changes I requested. The building itself is extremely beautiful with copper walls and beautiful furniture.... Read More I had many compliments about the location from my wedding guests!

Sarah and Jake

Amazing staff to work with and beautiful venue. Definitely worth the money!

Absolutely fantastic!

My daughter's wedding and reception were held at the McNamara Alumni Center and I could not have been happier with everything! Kim Hamlin was so very helpful to us, and so nice! Everyone that we dealt with there was wonderful. The space was fantastic, the catering by D'Amico... Read More was fantastic! They were a great help in coordinating all the vendors coming in, and had some great suggestions and ideas. They were very professional and knew what they were doing. The space itself has beautiful architecture. Many of our guests had never been there before, and were very impressed! I can't say enough about how happy we were with everything! I could not have asked for anything better!

Ceremony & Reception Venue

This place is beautiful! Throughout the night we received so many complements on the building and also food and staff. McNamara helped our dream wedding become a reality! The staff is so easy to work with and helped with whatever they could!

Flexible and Dependable

The staff was very receptive and open to my ideas. We had horrible weather the day of our wedding and the staff was on top of everything and ready to go amidst the chaos. :) The physical environment is breathtaking and the service was remarkable.

STUNNING! A Reception MUST!

I had my wedding reception here and absolutely LOVED it! I viewed several other venues and none of them compared to the McNamara Center, not only was it stunning but the staff was amazing. I received numerous compliments on my venue, the staff and food. I'm an extremely picky... Read More eater and I loved ALL the food at the tasting. The staff are extremely helpful and truly invested in making your day perfect. Highly recommend the McNamara Center, you will NOT be disappointed.

Stunning

The architecture of the McNamara Alumni Center is what initially caught my eye – it was absolutely stunning!!! The service was impeccable; Kim Hamlin was amazing to work with. She made sure all of my needs as well as my vendors needs were met and was willing to above and... Read More beyond to make our day special. The staff was very professional; they ran the sound system and also made sure the slideshow was ready to go. All of our guests were raving about McNamara and have even recommended it to future couples! I would highly recommend this venue to other couples!

Amazing Venue

McNamara Alumni Center was an amazing venue for my wedding. They accomodated my need to have both the ceremony and reception for 270 people and provided amazing service and and a memorable day.

amazing venue

We couldn't have picked a better place for our wedding. The venue was so naturally beautiful.

elegant setting for a decent price

McNamara was such a great open space for our wedding of 190 guests...a beautiful place with dark, elegant feel and water feature, band stand, and high ceiling

Fantastic

Overall I'm thrilled that we had our wedding ceremony and reception at McNamara. The space by itself is truly gorgeous and is unlike any other space we toured. The ceremony room was easy to decorate and looked fantastic. There were no strict rules on how I could decorate so I... Read More could really get creative. Same goes for the reception space. My event coordinator was awesome to work with and didn't lose patience with all my questions! My only negative comments would be that the representative there on the day of (not the coordinator I had been working with the whole time) was a bit rude. We had brought a couple of bottles of champagne to the space as they had never told us that wasn't allowed. Between the ceremony and reception when we went to pop some bubbly we learned that she had confiscated everything and didn't tell us so we had thought it had gotten stolen. Also, they made a mistake about the rehearsal time. Everyone showed up to rehearse to find out that they had double booked the space and we could not rehearse in the actual ceremony room and we had only about 20 min. to go through everything. Both intances were not a huge issue but defintely added some stress. Despite these little setbacks I would absolutely recommend this venue and would re-book them in the future.

Review for McNamara Alumni Center - University of Minnesota

Elegant, modern space that is on the University of Minnesota campus where both my husband and I attended. I loved that the location didn't need decoration to be a captivating place to hold an event like a wedding.;McNamara staff were not always helpful or friendly. D'Amico... Read More catering staff were very helpful and helped to design a healthy menu exactly to our specifications. The food was incredible- presentation and taste. However, we had about $1000 of surprises that came on our final catering bill.

Review for McNamara Alumni Center - University of Minnesota

The McNamara Alumni Center has a very unique architectural setting. The windows open to the bright skyline, candles can be floated along a water feature that travels throughout, and it's a wonderful open space to hold both the reception and ceremony.

Review for McNamara Alumni Center - University of Minnesota

I loved everything! The food is incredible as is the catering manager and the facility staff. The venue is absolutely gorgeous! Both the catering and facility staff are incredibly flexible, creative, and accomodating. The venue has plenty of physical spaces to meet various... Read More needs. They coordinated very easily and well with my outside vendors. They made my vision a reality and made it a priority to make our day special and flawless.;There is nothing to warn about. They are very professional, but at the same time really help you think of everything ahead of time. I had absolutely no problems or trouble. I guess the only thing perhaps worth mentioning is that there is free street parking on Sundays and limited free street parking on Saturday/weekday nights, but otherwise guests or the host/hostess may have to pay for a reduced event parking rate in a very nearby parking garage.