‘I do’ — love you and the Iowa Hawkeyes

IOWA CITY - Ten to 20 weekends each year, bouquets instead of footballs get tossed around Kinnick Stadium.

The Brechler Press Box at Kinnick Stadium, to be exact, is where brides and grooms cut a cake and raise a glass.

When it's not hosting spectators on fall football Saturdays, the press box has a second life throughout the year as the scene of weddings, receptions, birthday parties, meetings, holiday events, reunions, dinners and sorority dances.

The $89 million stadium renovation completed in 2006 that added luxury suites and indoor club seats also added larger lounge and club areas that are popular for group events.

“We do a lot of events up here, not just weddings,” said Kiley Hinkle, coordinator of premium services and stadium club for University of Iowa Athletics. “Definitely, the word has spread.”

In addition to about 15 weddings and receptions this year, the Kinnick skybox will host about 100 events for companies, non-profit organizations and the university, Hinkle said. That number doesn't include all the “internal” Athletics Department events held in the space, for which there is no fee.

Demand for the space has grown enough since the 2006 renovation that the department added Hinkle's position to oversee booking and to coordinate non-gameday events. Another person handles gameday football suite rentals.

“On the football off weekends, we fill it up,” Hinkle said. “We've even had double receptions, one on the first level and one on the second level.”

The university and non-profits get a discounted rate when renting the sky box spaces, Hinkle said. Rental fees for weddings run $350 an hour, with a minimum of $1,750 and a security fee. The McCord Club Lounge and the Outdoor Club Lounge are the two main large spaces for rent in the skybox.

The UI Athletics Department took in about $130,000 in 2010-11 from non-football events at the Kinnick press box and about $90,000 the year before that. The money goes primarily to help pay the nearly $8 million per year debt service on the 2006 renovation, said Mick Walker, head of business operations for the Athletics Department.

Many couples choose the location because of their loyalty to the UI and Hawkeye football.

“Last fall, we were at one of the games, and we were like ‘this is perfect, why don't we just do it here,'” Samantha Burke, 24, said of her Oct. 8 wedding and reception at the Kinnick skybox.

Burke is a UI graduate and her fiance, Kent Bredlau, is an Iowa City native who now works at the university. They have season tickets for Hawkeye football. After looking at other venues, they decided Kinnick was an unusual spot for a wedding and also one that held personal importance for them.

“We joke ... we're not sure how many we have coming to our wedding to see us get married and how many are coming to see Kinnick,” Burke said. “You know you don't have very many chances to get up in the suite boxes.”

Having a “Hawkeye-obsessed” husband made the Kinnick skybox a no-brainer for Fallon Stefani last year. Fallon and Matt Stefani, UI grads who now live in Chicago, held their Sept. 17, 2010, wedding reception on the first and second levels of the skybox. They used the stadium Jumbotron for a photo slide show, and Fallon's maid of honor arranged a surprise appearance by the Hawkeye pep band.

“It was just so cool to be there, to look out in my wedding dress and dancing but to see the football field,” said Fallon Stefani, 29. “Matt already wants to have his 40th birthday there.”

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