Weddings at Steeple Square.
Built as St. Mary's between 1864 and 1867 by Dubuque's German immigrant parish, closed in 2010, and brought back as an event centre. Three hundred guests under a Gothic vault for a rental in the low four figures, with catering left open. It is one of the strongest value propositions in this guide, and it behaves like a church in two ways you need to plan around.
Historic downtown Dubuque, under a 252 foot steeple
The Venue
Why Steeple Square photographs the way it does.
The arithmetic first. The room rents for $1,500 to $3,750 and includes setup and teardown, tables, chairs, linens, a dance floor, a sound system and bar service. Catering is open, which means the single largest line in a wedding budget is yours to negotiate rather than the venue's to set. Almost nowhere else in this guide gives you a landmark building and that much control over the same day.
There is a real kitchen on site, the Sr. Helen Huewe Culinary Kitchen, and that matters more than it sounds. Open catering only saves money when a caterer can actually cook on site. Venues without a kitchen quietly force you into drop off catering, which narrows your list and raises the quote. Here it widens both.
What you are buying beyond the number is a building nobody has to explain. The steeple has stood 252 feet over Dubuque since 1867, the stained glass came from F.X. Zettler's studio in Munich and went in around 1916, and generations of Dubuque families were married under it before the parish closed. It photographs like nothing else in eastern Iowa. It also has a church's acoustics and a church's coloured light, and both need a decision rather than a surprise.
If this one is not quite right
What you actually need to know
- Guest capacity
- Up to 300 in the main hall, with the property topping out near 320 seated. Worth knowing before you plan seating: a nave is long and narrow rather than square, so 300 people here sit in a long line rather than a wide block. Walk the room and pick where the head table goes with sightlines in mind, because in a narrow room the far end genuinely cannot see you.
- Ceremony sites
- The main hall is the obvious ceremony space, with the raised chancel doing the work a platform would have to do anywhere else. There is also an outdoor plaza, and the lower level for a different look.
- Reception spaces
- Three spaces that mix and match: the main hall, the outdoor plaza, and a bright industrial lower level. Ceremony in the hall and cocktails on the plaza while the room turns over is the natural sequence, and it means you are not asking 300 people to stand in a corridor during a flip.
- Getting ready
- A Bride's Room and the McCoy Multipurpose Room on site. Ask which has windows, and get in early enough to use them.
- If it rains
- The easiest in this guide. It is a church. The only weather dependent piece is the outdoor plaza, and losing it costs you a cocktail hour location rather than a ceremony.
- What it costs
- $1,500 to $3,750 for the event, with open catering on top. At 150 guests with a mid range caterer you are realistically looking at venue and food in the low to mid five figures, which is well under what an all inclusive room of this size and character costs. Get the rate for your specific date and space combination.
- What's included
- Setup and teardown, tables and chairs, table linens, dance floor, sound system and bar service. That is an unusually full list at this price, and it removes several rental line items couples forget to budget.
- Parking
- Genuinely good for a downtown historic building: two on site lots, access to the former DB&T lots, non metered street parking, accessible parking in the courtyard steps from the elevator, and a reserved drop off at the main entrance. There is a parking map worth sending with invitations.
- Where guests stay
- Downtown Dubuque, so hotels are close rather than on site. Hotel Julien is walkable and worth a block if you want guests on foot.
- End of night
- Downtown with neighbours. Get your end time in writing along with what time vendors can load in, since a historic building often has tighter access windows than a purpose built hall.
- Vendor rules
- Open catering, in house bar. That combination is worth reading twice: you control the biggest cost on the day and not the second biggest. Budget alcohol at the venue's rates and do not assume you can bring it.
Worth knowing early: The acoustics. A Gothic nave with a vaulted ceiling was built to carry an organ and an unamplified voice, which means a long reverb tail. Spoken vows get lost without microphones, and a DJ run at club volume turns to mud because the room smears the low end. Ask what the house sound system actually covers, put lapel microphones on the vows, and know that acoustic sets and live bands sit better in this room than heavy bass does.
The four places worth your time
Under the vault, from the back of the nave
Ceremony hour
The frame this building exists for. Shoot it wide enough to get the ceiling in, because the height is the whole point and a tight frame throws it away.
The Zettler stained glass
Whenever the sun is on that side
Munich glass from around 1916, painted and fired rather than simply leaded, so it is densely pigmented. When sun is behind it, it does not just glow, it throws saturated colour across the floor and across people.
The steeple from a block away
Late afternoon or dusk
252 feet does not fit in a frame from the plaza. Back up a block, put the couple small at the bottom, and let the tower do the work.
The outdoor plaza
Cocktail hour
Open sky and the building behind you. It is also the release valve during a room flip.
Downtown Dubuque and the bluffs
Golden hour, a short drive
Brick, river and hills within minutes. Dubuque gives you more variety inside ten minutes than most of this guide.
Your day, hour by hour
At Steeple Square
Full Wedding GalleryPhotographing Steeple Square
Coloured light is beautiful and it is a problem
A patch of saturated red or blue across the floor is gorgeous in a wide frame. The same patch across one cheek in a portrait is close to unfixable, because you cannot white balance half a face. Know which windows the sun is on at your ceremony hour and place the couple accordingly.
A nave is long, not wide
Three hundred guests in a church sit in a line. That is lovely for a processional and unkind to a head table, so decide where the front of the room is with sightlines in mind rather than defaulting to the far end.
Microphone the vows
This is the one piece of gear advice on any page in this guide. The reverb that makes an organ sound enormous will swallow a quietly spoken vow, and the vows are the audio nobody gets to re record.
Shoot the ceiling
Height is the building's whole argument. Every frame that crops the vault out could have been taken in any hall in Iowa.
Weddings Here
Steeple Square Questions
What couples ask about this venue.
How much does a wedding at Steeple Square cost?
The event rents for $1,500 to $3,750, and that includes setup and teardown, tables, chairs, linens, dance floor, sound system and bar service. Catering is open, so food is negotiated separately and is the line you control. For a 300 capacity landmark building, that is one of the better value structures in this guide.
Can you bring your own caterer to Steeple Square?
Yes. Catering is open, and there is a full culinary kitchen on site, which means a caterer can genuinely cook rather than reheat. The bar, though, is in house, so alcohol is priced at the venue's rates and is not a place to shop around.
How many guests does Steeple Square hold?
Up to 300 in the main hall, with the property near 320 seated. Because the room is a former nave it is long and narrow rather than square, so plan the head table position around sightlines before you finalise a floor plan.
What was Steeple Square before it was a wedding venue?
St. Mary's Catholic Church, built between 1864 and 1867 by Dubuque's German immigrant parish. The parish closed in 2010 and the campus was restored, with the stained glass revitalised in 2017 and the 252 foot steeple finished in 2019.
Is the sound difficult in a converted church?
It needs planning rather than avoiding. A vaulted nave has a long reverb tail, so use microphones for the ceremony and be realistic that bass heavy amplified music smears in a room built for an organ. Live acoustic music sounds better here than it does almost anywhere.