No! While we would love for everyone to come early so we can spend as much time together as possible, we completely understand if guests choose to come Friday (or even early Saturday). This should be a low-stress event--come when you can and stay as long as you can.
Yes, kids are welcome! Madden's has a lot of great family-friendly activities.
Both are good options. Minneapolis has more flight and rental car options and might be relatively cheaper. But Minneapolis is about a 2-hour drive from Brainerd. If you would like to avoid the drive, Brainerd has a small airport with a few flights. If you fly into Brainerd, we would still recommend getting a rental car or making car pool arrangements with others--there are taxis available (no Uber or Lyft yet), but these options are relatively limited.