The Bakken Museum — Married to Experience and Exemplifying ‘Love is Love’

On the west shore of Lake Bde Maka Ska lies The Bakken Museum, a Tudor and Gothic-style mansion that houses science, technology and humanities exhibits. Just upstairs from those exhibits lies a beautiful rooftop terrace that transforms into a weekend wedding venue.
Hidden on the rooftop’s side is a nature-filled space with a gazebo in the center garnished with flowers and plants. Behind that lies a koi pond surrounded by hedges, and a room that connects the two rooftop spaces, embellished with stained glass and carved wooden trimmings. Almost every weekend, the space fills with rows of white chairs for family and friends to celebrate a couple’s special day.
When you rent The Bakken for a wedding, you’re renting the entire facility, not just the rooftop, allowing you to host inside or out and adjust based on weather conditions, according to Chris Lundeen, the director of facilities, operations and rentals at The Bakken.
“We don’t really rent rooms here because you can get that anywhere, it’s mostly the experience piece of it that is something magical or it’s just different,” he says. “The way the space lays out and talks to people, it’s quite a different kind of venue.”
Clients often come in with just the right touch to pull together the space and know what will make it special for them, says Lundeen.
“Whether it’s building a small arch in front of the gazebo where they’re going to get married or how they actually do their tables, a lot of these folks are blending things with [the space],” he says.
Lundeen says he and his staff take the time to learn who their clients are by forming strong bonds and creating a safe environment for all couples.
“I think we’re a good safe haven for people,” he says. “Once they walk through here, they get a nice vibe that they’ll be taken care of.”

Weddings at The Bakken can be intimate or have up to about 120 people. You’re not required to purchase food and drinks from the museum, which Lundeen says provides an open canvas for people to plan how they want to.
“It provides a lot of flexibility for people who want different kinds of ethnic foods and things like that,” he says. “We really want to work with clients to create a special day for them.”
The museum holds weddings about 14 to 18 weekends per season, and about a third of them are LGBTQ+ weddings, according to Lundeen.
Alongside creating a welcoming environment through their staff, Alex Askew, vice president of philanthropy at The Bakken, says the museum has done a lot of equity and diversity work internally and through their programs. One of their most popular events is Discovery Day, a family event that spotlights women in science.
“We’ve really tried to pay attention and put our resources towards the communities that aren’t necessarily being served by the existing structures,” Askew says. “We were doing queer weddings here before it was even legal, in certain ways.”
The outdoor spaces are a huge draw for weddings at The Bakken, but Askew says people like knowing that the money goes back to the museum.
“It’s a beautiful space and they fall in love with that, but then they also feel really good about putting those resources towards a non-profit like us,” he says.
The Bakken is community-based and partners with other organizations to host events and display exhibits such as a collaboration with The Show Art Gallery, which works to connect artists of all abilities and build accessibility in the arts.

After the COVID-19 pandemic, they hosted community theater with Open Eye Theater on the rooftop, allowing for reconnection after being stuck at home for so long.
“For about three years we did a different show and ran that for 14 nights in the spring and it was just wonderfully received,” Lundeen says.
Lundeen has done weddings at The Bakken since the early ‘90s, but he says his favorite ones are when somebody can make it personal and avoid overdoing it. He recalled a small 25-person wedding they hosted after COVID-19 where the bride kept it simple, humble and personal.
“It was so beautifully done, she had all these menus and all these personal touches,” he says. “When it was all done, I was like ‘God, that was a home run.’ It was kind of just perfect and everybody had a great time.”
Many people who get married there hold sentimental value with the museum, including a couple that returned 25 years after their wedding. Lundeen and Askew say the couple came back 25 years to the date and recreated pictures from when they got married.
“You could come back and we’re still a community institution and we’re still doing the same kind of stuff,” Askew says. “I think that’s really magical for a wedding venue to be held in such a community aspect that you can come back and see it doing magic.”

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