Best Hotel Suites in Rochester, MN to Get Ready for Your Wedding Day Photos
You might not realize it yet, but on your wedding day, the time allotted for your preparations will take up nearly half of your day.
Of course, you want good pictures of those moments. And, in photography, backgrounds play a decisive role. This can make a night-and-day difference in your final results.
But the problem is that the best venues in Rochester don’t always have great photogenic places to get ready. Sometimes the getting-ready rooms don’t have natural lighting at all, or are way too small, or have wood paneling all over the place.
As a photographer, I will try to explain what is the ideal place to get ready in order to have such valuable memories. You will then be able to decide if you should get ready at your venue, or maybe at another location, such as a hotel suite. And, as we will see, with a bit of organization, it might not even cost you any extra money.
Let’s begin.
Table of Contents
What Is a Good Photogenic Location to Get Ready on Your Wedding Day Morning
A good location for photos must meet the following criteria:
- There is a lot of natural light coming from huge windows.
- It is spacious, so people are not crowded.
- It is nicely decorated with bright (white) colors on the walls (avoid wood-toned walls or green walls).
- It is clean without objects that distract attention.
That means that there are a couple of scenarios to avoid. For instance:
- A place that has no windows (such as a church getting-ready room).
- A place that is too small to accommodate your wedding party.
- A place with wood walls or green walls.
- A place with unattractive decorations.
Which wedding venue in Rochester offers the best room to get ready for your wedding day?
A little tip for you if you are planning your wedding and want the ultimate venue where you can host your ceremony and have nice pictures in the morning: it’s the Plummer House!
The Plummer House has several bedrooms to get ready. The Master Bedroom (the one you see below) is far and away the best one. We love the wood floor, the old furniture, and the light tile wall. The room has two big windows facing east that bring a lot of natural light, so precious for good photos.
But that’s not all, the Plummer house also has:
- The daughter’s Bedroom, that have a lot of natural light.
- The mother-in-law’s bedroom
- The Guest Bedroom.
And if that’s not enough, we can still use the Living room (I love the mix of wood panel and red furniture) and even the library.
But, be aware, this venue has a limitation: the number of guests that it can welcome 100 guests (spread across different rooms).
How to Deal with Venues That Don’t Have Nice Getting-Ready Rooms?
If your venue has other locations that work great for photos, then you might want to use those for nice photos. For instance, a nice reception area that is not currently being decorated could work; however, this is rarely the case. Florists and other vendors usually set up the reception room in the morning. So, an easy answer (and it’s in the title of this article) is: book a nice hotel suite!
They usually meet all the criteria mentioned above: well-lit, spacious, well-decorated with bright walls.
Let’s Speak Budget
If you have family or friends traveling, they will need to sleep somewhere. And the answer is often a hotel room. In that scenario, it might be a good idea to upgrade from the regular hotel room (which is usually too small) to a huge suite that you can use for your images!
Tips: How to Pick the Best Suite for Photos
Of course, the first thing to do is to go to the hotel’s website and look at the photos. That already gives you an idea of the vibe. But keep in mind that photos are always retouched, which makes it difficult to form an accurate opinion of the room.
Now, there are two tips to pick the best suite for photos:
- If possible, ask for a room facing east or south: Indeed, you will be getting ready in the morning. And you know that the sun rises in the east and is in the south around noon. Therefore, you will have more light.
- Pick a suite that is located on the highest floors of the building. Therefore, you will have more light coming from the windows.
Two Other Reasons to Pick a Nice Hotel: First Look and Nice Lobby in Case of Bad Weather
Hotels often feature one thing that can be a lifesaving solution in case of bad weather: their lobby! That’s the case of the J. Powers, the Marriott and the DoubleTree (which now belong to the University of Minnesota)
Indeed, if it’s rainy or snowy outside and you can’t get pictures outside, then having a nice lobby is pretty convenient!
That would allow you to do your first look (perhaps even some of your Bride and Groom photos) and, importantly, your group pictures as well.
Hotels in Rochester Offering the Best and most photogenic Suites
Thanks to my photography career, I have visited several hotels in Rochester, and I can share with you my recommendations.
The Kahler Grand Hotel
The Kahler Grand Hotel is the Historic Downtown hotel where Mayo Clinic doctors used to frequent. It has some amazing suite rooms! Check at The Towers at the Kahler Grand Hotel with chic cherry wood style furniture. Check the photos below. It’s also a wedding venue, and it has a lobby. Nevertheless, the lighting in the lobby is not ideal, so I would not encourage you to use it unless you have no choice.
The Hilton (with the J.Powers)
The Powers Hilton is one of the most recent hotels in downtown Rochester, MN, and also an amazing modern wedding venue.
Suites are huge, very well-lit, and bright. The decoration is modern, elegant, with a lot of glass elements. Rooms really reveal their potential during sunny days. It offers several places to hang wedding dresses.
Plus, you can use the huge lobby for some photos with the wedding party in case of bad weather!
2 Alternatives to Hotel Suites
Airbnb
A great alternative to hotels is Airbnb. Indeed, renting an entire home might not be more expensive than getting a big suite in a fancy hotel. And the advantage is that you might have more space. But the same rules apply for Airbnb, and the criteria that make them photogenic or not. We need a lot of natural light!
The downside of Airbnb is that they rarely have nice, welcoming hall areas that can be used for first look or group photos. In other words, if you pick an Airbnb, you will be relying on nice weather or have another backup location.
Learn more about good Airbnb rentals to reserve in Rochester in this article.
Drive a Bit Further: The Saint James in Red Wing, MN
Depending on your wedding day, if you are not afraid to drive one hour on your wedding day, there is one amazing hotel location in Red Wing: The Saint James Hotel.
Not only is it located on the side of the St-Croix River, but this hotel (also a wedding venue) has an amazing historic area more than 100years old.
It offers nice suites to get ready in, a historic aisle with one-hundred-year-old furniture and stained glass.
The lobby is also a place you can use for the bride and groom and group pictures. Learn more here.
You might want to consider an Alternative Place to Get Ready if You Are Getting Married in one of these Rochester Venues
Let’s discuss the case of the three most popular venues in Town. The most famous one: Mayowood Stone Barn, a great challenger, the Garten MarketPlatz, and finally, one of the most affordable ones, the BlueMoon Ballroom. That might not please the following venues, but if you booked one of those and you want good pictures of your preparation, I strongly recommend booking a nice Hotel Suite.
The following list focuses only on “real wedding venues,” not places that only host receptions, such as restaurants. So let’s start with the list:
The Mayowood Stone Barn
Let’s be clear, the Mayowood Stone Barn is the best wedding venue in town. Nevertheless, the getting-ready room (especially for the bride) is not what I would qualify as the best location for good pictures.
The Den
The Mayo Stone Barn is clearly one of the best venues in Rochester for getting ready when it’s sunny. But for rooms to get ready in, they could probably be better. The Men’s room (called the Den), is a huge barn.
But there are almost no windows (compared to the size of the room), which means that even when sunny, we would need to turn the light on! The walls are wood, which makes everything look orange.
Nevertheless, on a sunny day, we can open the big barn’s door and get some decent photos in the entrance.
And we can also turn off the light to avoid the orange colors.
Bridle Room
On the other hand, the bride’s getting-ready place is tight and dark. Terribly dark.
As a photographer, I can manage a few portraits next to the tiny windows facing west, but that’s all. Indeed, with stone walls and poor lighting, I won’t be able to capture a lot of good candid shots.
Plus, the room is so small that it quickly gets cluttered with all your bridal party bags and boxes.
The Garten Marketplatz
The Garten Marketplatz Perennial Farm is one of Rochester’s gemstones, located south of Rochester. The reception room can welcome a large number of people, but what really makes the difference is its outdoor area with numerous options to host your ceremony and numerous spots for photography.
The getting-ready rooms, however, might not be optimal if you want a lot of candid shots.
The Men’s Getting Ready Room
The room for the groom and groomsmen is quite small; it is a little house adjacent to the main building. Though it’s quite small, therefore, it would work great if you have 2 best men with you. Beyond that number, it might start to be too small and too cluttered.
The Bridal Suite
The room for the bride is an aisle-shaped room. Despite having windows covering one entire side of the walls, these face north, which means they won’t bring in much light after noon. On the positive side, the walls are painted in white, which makes the room brighter.
The room is quite well decorated with a lot of vintage furniture in an old European style. But this makes it very tight and prone to being cluttered. So if you get ready with one person, that can work. But if you have a whole bridal party with four or five attendants, this room will really be too small. What a shame, because the venue has so much potential.
The Blue Moon Ballroom
The Blue Moon Ballroom is one of the more affordable venues in town that can welcome a large number of people. The downside is that the rooms for preparation have no windows and no decent furniture.
So clearly, you will need to get dressed somewhere else!
Conclusion
When you spend a lot of energy and money planning the perfect wedding, you want some nice photos. And this happens only if we have a happy couple (and their wedding party), in a nice venue, but also in a nice getting-ready room. That’s why I exhort you not to skip this important choice. Spending a bit more money (to upgrade from a regular hotel room to a Suite) will greatly benefit your photos.
And finally, if you are planning a wedding in Rochester and are looking for a photographer, I invite you to contact me today. I usually answer in 24 hours.
