North St. Paul wedding chapel offers trendy ‘dive bar’-style nuptials

When Eva Johnson was hoping to open “the dive bar of wedding venues,” she looked for a space in downtown North St. Paul, which is known for its small-town charm and blue-collar roots.

There, the Roseville entrepreneur found the “ideal” vintage storefront between two actual dive bars. So she transformed it into a wedding chapel called the Garter Toss, which fills the kitschy, heart-shaped hole left by the 2022 closure of the Mall of America’s Chapel of Love.

Johnson’s quirky venue is right on trend, as couples ditch traditional weddings in favor of more personalized experiences, including writing their own vows and even hiring tattoo artists to ink permanent party favors on their guests. A few years ago, a survey conducted by the Knot wedding website found that only about 20% of couples got married at religious institutions — half the rate from a decade prior.

The pandemic put a damper on the sort of highly produced, big-buck blowouts splashed all over social media. And the concept that replaced them — small-but-special micro-weddings — stuck around, Johnson says, because they’re less stressful to plan and more affordable.

The first couple to get married at the Garter Toss, Brooklyn and Jerry Larew, drove 13 hours from their home in West Virginia for their late-July wedding. The Larews, who spent part of their honeymoon in Wisconsin Dells, chose the chapel because of their shared love of kitschy fun.

The couple appreciated the venue’s Las Vegas energy and the nearby bars for the after party. “We wanted a space that would let us be ourselves and celebrate our way,” Brooklyn said.

Johnson got the idea to open a wedding chapel after hosting several bachelorette parties at an Airbnb she owns north of the Twin Cities.

Johnson realized that some of the most memorable celebrations she attended were casual, including one held at a sprawling tiki bar and another where the couple hosted a pig roast in a park.

Her vision for the Garter Toss was also informed by her personal wedding-planning experiences.

Johnson’s first wedding took place a decade ago, at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. The fee for the DNR building was relatively inexpensive, she said, but the space required renting tables and chairs. “I was trying to do something different,” Johnson recalled. “But it was not that cheap and a ton of work.”

After divorcing, Johnson remarried last year. This time, she planned a two-part affair with a ceremony in her father-in-law’s backyard and a second celebration in Mexico.

Johnson says she created the Garter Toss as an easy alternative to popular, low-cost wedding venues. Something more personal than a courthouse wedding, but with the infrastructure most backyards lack, such as bathrooms, a bar and protection from weather.

Wedding chapels may call to mind ill-fated celebrity nuptials, such as Britney Spears’ infamous 55-hour marriage. But Johnson said a Las Vegas vow renewal she attended recently defied the stereotype. “I was impressed by how meaningful it still felt, even though it was kind of a kitschy, playful environment,” she said.

Inspired by the ersatz glitz of Sin City and Miami, the Garter Toss feels a bit like a 1980s hair salon or shopping mall. Except that neither of those places likely would have turned a hulking his-and-hers motorcycle into decor.

Johnson furnished the Garter Toss out of other people’s basements and garages. There’s a tufted-vinyl bar, makeup-counter lights and, yes, a two-passenger motorcycle formerly owned by Ray and Mary, whose names are inscribed on the side.

After Mary died, Ray rode the motorcycle until he was 92; his daughter sold the bike to Johnson because of her vision to commemorate the couple. “She picked me because everyone else was wondering how to get the names off,” Johnson said. “And I was like, ‘No, no, that’s why I want it.’ ”

If couples or guests are in the market for something to wear to the wedding, Johnson also partitioned off part of the space to house her friend Amanda Morell’s collection of secondhand bridal and formalwear, called Fashion Club.