Katelyn Stalboerger and Isaac Nelson had everything planned for their upcoming May 4 wedding.

Following their 2 p.m. ceremony at the Church of Saint Paul in Ham Lake, their 185 guests would make their way north to Circle B Weddings and Event Venue in Isanti for a reception, dinner and dance.

But, according to a tearful TikTok video posted by Stalboerger on Monday, the couple got an email Sunday saying that Circle B would be “closing effective immediately.”

The subject line read: “Circle B Permanently Closed.”

“It is no longer possible to maintain the business in the current economic environment, the change in the economy, proliferation of new wedding venues in the market and most importantly increased costs have forced the management to make the difficult decision to close this historic venue,” the email states.

The owners of the venue, Wayne and Angela Butt, who also own the Historic John P. Furber Farm wedding venue in Cottage Grove, could not be reached for comment.

“For those of you that have upcoming weddings, we are truly sorry, but unfortunately we will be unable to accommodate your special event,” the email states. “We understand that this news will not only be disheartening to many of you and your families, but for many of you this will be devastating for your plans, for that we are truly sorry.”

The email ends with this note: “Nobody is available to take calls or emails.”

In her TikTok video, Stalboerger asked for help finding another venue with less than two weeks of notice:

@katelynstalboerger

PLEASE HELP our wedding venue just told us they are closed effective immediately and we have no where to go and are out all of the money. We were supposed to get married in Isanti, MN. Our church is in Ham Lake, MN.

♬ original sound – Katelyn Stalboerger

“We have nowhere to go, and we are not getting our money back,” she said. “If anyone knows of anything in the Isanti, Minnesota, in that area — because our church is in Ham Lake — please let us know. We are just trying to figure out what to do.”

In a follow-up TikTok posted on Monday, Stalboerger said attempts to reach Circle B staff have been unsuccessful because the venue’s phone number has been disconnected:

@katelynstalboerger

Thank y’all SO much for the support. We are trying to get through this stressful time and hopefully we will hear back from Circle B at some point.

♬ original sound – Katelyn Stalboerger

“They deleted their website. It’s completely gone,” she said. “Their social media has been deleted, so there’s no trace of them anymore.”

Stalboerger said she learned that other couples who had planned to celebrate their wedding day at Circle B never received an email informing them of the closure. They found out, they told Stalboerger, from her TikTok post.

Wayne and Angela Butt, doing business as Lakeside Events, were named in 2022 as the defendants in a civil lawsuit filed in Washington County over the cutting of trees at a different property in Cottage Grove, according to court documents.

Their attorney in that matter, Ryan Kaess, said he could not comment.

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Teach for America Twin Cities will host a nationally acclaimed activist at its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion event this week.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham, an activist, speaker and member of former President Barack Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, will headline the event Thursday with her talk, “Co-creating a More Just Minnesota,” that aims to give context for Minnesota’s racial disparities.

Brittany Packnett, of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, participates in a July 13, 2016, meeting about community policing and criminal justice with President Barack Obama and others in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

Cunningham will share anecdotes, data and best practices for building a movement to drive equitable outcomes in education, housing and health care, according to a news release from Teach for America Twin Cities.

“After George Floyd’s murder, everyone was making commitments about how they will do things differently and make it equitable,” said Sheletta Brundidge, a local small business advocate and CEO of production company ShelettaMakesMeLaugh. “We need some lasting change, not just the knee-jerk reaction like after Floyd died. … You can’t legislate change. You can legislate laws, but change starts in the heart.”

Teach For America, which launched its Twin Cities chapter in 2009, recruits and trains educators who teach for two years in underserved, low-income schools.

Thursday’s event begins at 7 p.m. at Minneapolis’ Guthrie Theater with tickets starting at $5.

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The perpetrator that ran roughshod through an electrical substation in St. Paul this weekend — knocking out power to some 1,600 customers in and around downtown — has been identified as nature’s own masked bandit, the wily raccoon.

Xcel Energy reported that the outage occurred around 4:30 a.m. Saturday and was caused by a curious critter exploring a substation.

Xcel crews responded and power was restored in little more than an hour, according to a spokesperson for the utility. There was no immediate word on the condition of the raccoon, but chances were slim that it escaped unscathed.

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By JONATHAN MATTISE (Associated Press)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Protesters chanted “Blood on your hands” at Tennessee House Republicans on Tuesday after they passed a bill that would allow some teachers and staff to carry concealed handguns on public school grounds, and bar parents and other teachers from knowing who was armed.

The 68-28 vote in favor of the bill sent it to Republican Gov. Bill Lee for consideration. If he signs it into law, it would be the biggest expansion of gun access in the state since last year’s deadly shooting at a private elementary school in Nashville.

Members of the public who oppose the bill harangued Republicans lawmakers after the vote, leading House Speaker Cameron Sexton to order the galleries cleared.

Four House Republicans and all Democrats opposed the bill, which the state Senate previously passed. The measure would bar disclosing which employees are carrying guns beyond school administrators and police, including to students’ parents and even other teachers. A principal, school district and law enforcement agency would have to agree to let staff carry guns.

The proposal presents a starkly different response to The Covenant School shooting than what Lee proposed last year. Republican legislators quickly cast aside his push to keep guns away from people deemed a danger to themselves or others.

A veto by Lee appears unlikely, since it would be a first for him and lawmakers would only need a simple majority of each chamber’s members to override it.

“What you’re doing is you’re creating a deterrent,” the bill’s sponsor, Republican state Rep. Ryan Williams, said before the vote. “Across our state, we have had challenges as it relates to shootings.”

Republicans rejected a series of Democratic amendments, including parental consent requirements, notification when someone is armed and the school district assuming civil liability for any injury, damage or death due to staff carrying guns. Democratic state Rep. Justin Jones tried to amend the name of the bill to be the “Refusal to Protect Kids in Schools Act.”

“My Republican colleagues continue to hold our state hostage, hold our state at gunpoint to appeal to their donors in the gun industry,” Jones said. “It is morally insane.”

It’s unclear if any school districts would take advantage of the law should it pass. For example, a spokesperson for Metro Nashville Public Schools, Sean Braisted, said the district believes “it is best and safest for only approved active-duty law enforcement to carry weapons on campus.”

About half of the U.S. states in some form allow teachers or other employees with concealed carry permits to carry guns on school property, according to the Giffords Law Center, a gun control advocacy group. Iowa’s governor signed a bill that the Legislature passed last week creating a professional permit for trained school employees to carry at schools that protects them from criminal or civil liability for use of reasonable force.

In Tennessee, a shooter indiscriminately opened fire in March 2023 at The Covenant School — a Christian school in Nashville — and killed three children and three adults before police killed him.

Despite coordinated campaigns after the shooting to persuade the Republican-led Statehouse to enact significant gun control measures, lawmakers have largely refused. They dismissed gun control proposals put forth by Democrats and even by Lee during regular annual sessions and a special session, even as parents of Covenant students shared accounts of the shooting and its lasting effects.

Under the bill passed Tuesday, a worker who wants to carry a handgun would need to have a handgun carry permit and written authorization from the school’s principal and local law enforcement. They would also need to clear a background check and undergo 40 hours of handgun training. They couldn’t carry guns at school events at stadiums, gymnasiums or auditoriums.

Tennessee passed a 2016 law allowing school workers in two rural counties to come armed to campus, but it wasn’t implemented, according to WPLN-FM.

Tennessee Republicans have pushed to loosen gun laws over the years, including approving permit-less carry for handguns in 2021. Lee backed the change.

The original law allowed residents 21 and older to carry handguns in public without a permit. Two years later, Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti struck a deal amid an ongoing lawsuit that then allowed 18- to 20-year-olds to carry handguns publicly.

Meanwhile, shortly after the shooting last year, Tennessee Republicans passed a law bolstering protections against lawsuits involving gun and ammunition dealers, manufacturers and sellers. Lawmakers and the governor this year have signed off on allowing private schools with pre-kindergarten classes to have guns on campus. Private schools without pre-K already were allowed to decide whether to let people bring guns on their grounds.

They have advanced some narrowly tailored gun limitations. One awaiting the governor’s signature would involuntarily commit certain criminal defendants for inpatient treatment and temporarily remove their gun rights if they are ruled incompetent to stand trial due to intellectual disability or mental illness. Another bill that still needs Senate approval would remove the gun rights of juveniles deemed delinquent due to certain offenses, ranging from aggravated assault to threats of mass violence, until the age of 25.