Great Venue Tour – Sofitel Minneapolis

I have to share with you a terrific experience I had at the Sofitel Minneapolis on Hwy 494 and Hwy 100 in Bloomington, MN. I have been familiar with the Sofitel and some of their staff – Wendy Gustafson, Director of Catering and Executive Chef Serge Devesa for some time but my recent experience was simply and amazingly outstanding.

Matthew and I met with Bonnie, a bride whose wedding we are designing. Bonnie and her fiancé Jim wanted the wedding reception to take place on the Hwy 494 strip in Bloomington/Edina, Minnesota, a first tier suburb of Minneapolis. The focus was great food and music with a not so traditional ballroom environment.

With that in mind, we knew just the perfect location – the former fine dinning restaurant La Fougasse at the Sofitel Minneapolis Hotel. A refreshing space with great color, setting and wonderful food under the eye of Chef Serge! Also on order and part of the wedding favors for each guest from the bride and groom would be that each guest would receive overnight sleeping room accommodations with a Sunday Brunch following an evening of celebration.

We arrived to meet Bonnie and introduce her to Wendy as Jay Gorham, Sales Manager for the sleeping room portion of the tour, joined us. As we began the tour of the La Fougasse event space, we were soon joined by Mike Tindal, Banquet Director as he had offered Bonnie, Matthew and myself a glass of champagne presented on a silver tray welcoming us to our tour at the Sofitel. As we reviewed the space beginning right at the entrance and talked about the details of flow, menu, band/dance area and dinning area we progressed on to one of the suites, which is where Bonnie and Jim will stay during their time at the Sofitel.

As we walked down the hallway to the Presidential Suite, we were surprised as the door opened and inside the suite stood a uniformed room attendant Perla Vazquez, Housekeeping Supervisor and she welcomed our tour to the suite. Before she started the room tour, she presented a welcome gift of luxurious toiletries’ on a silver tray. The shampoo, lotion and conditioner are products of L’Occitane en Provence and are a Verbena scent from Paris. The suite was wonderful and the furnishings were of the highest style and quality. After viewing the suite, we moved on to the Garden Court area where the brunch would be held, a great space with creative brunch possibilities.

As we were readying to depart, Wendy presented a box of petit French pastries for Bonnie and lucky for us, The Wedding Guys! Obviously a petit taste of what would be a great experience to celebrate their wedding at the Sofitel Minneapolis. My hat goes off to Hotel Sofitel and the team for creating an out of the box experience that truly makes all the difference in the world! Bravo!