Unique Romantic Wedding Setting
Breathtaking. That’s the perfect word to describe this romantic wedding setting. On the Tall Ship Elissa, at Pier 21 Galveston, Texas, Claire and Tim exchanged their wedding vows in front of 130 guests on the deck of the 134-year-old, three-masted, iron-hulled sailing ships built in Aberdeen, Scotland.
The groom had just come home from the U.S. Naval Academy. His best friend invited him to attend a friend’s Toga party. Once introduced, the epic romance between Claire and Tim began. Soon after, while watching a beautiful sunrise by the water in Kemah, as the water crashed against the rocks, Tim got up on one knee and proposed to Claire. Fifteen months later, the lovely Claire stood in a keyhole-back lace wedding gown, with 6 bridesmaids, 6 groomsmen, and her valiant groom by her side on Ship Elissa. The skies were stormy prior to the ceremony, adding to the authentic feel of the historic sailing ship on the sea. The rain stopped just in time for their unique, romantic wedding ceremony, and waited until the wedding party had moved down into the hull of the ship for the reception before it continued! Like pictures from a storybook fairytale, the fully-functional vessel created a historical, yet romantic wedding setting like no other on Galveston Island!
The Tall Ship Elissa is not a replica, but an actual surviving sailing ship of the ‘Age of Sail’. Named after a Phoenician princess named Elissa and became the Queen of Carthage in the epic Roman poem ‘The Aeneid’, she carried a variety of cargos around the world to different ports for several owners for 90 years. Ship preservationists rescued her from the scrap yard in Piraeus Harbor, Greece. Her miraculous discovery and restoration is documented at the Texas Seaport Museum. Thanks to the Galveston Historical Foundation and the many volunteers that keep her seaworthy, the Tall Ship Elissa, built by Henry Fowler Watt, is a working 19th-century square-rigged sailing ship to be enjoyed by all today, just as Claire and Tim did to sail into their new life together as husband and wife!
Contact us about your wedding today!