Schooner Wolf – 74’ Flagship of Conch Republic

When you’re asking your guests to travel over 1000 miles to attend your destination wedding, you want them to have the best time possible. Getting married on the water is great, but if you really want to set your celebration apart charter the Schooner Wolf!

Planning our sail was easy, even from a distance. Julie made sure everything was in order and always responded to my emails promptly. I must have asked a million silly questions, but she patiently answered every one of them and went out of her way to offer assistance in a variety of ways, like offering hotel and restaurant recommendations and procuring a cd player so we could play music on board. Since we’d already planned a wedding on the beach before we found out about the Wolf, we declined the chance to get married by Admiral Finbar and chose to use the ship as a sort of cocktail hour. It’s BYOB, and we were able to drop off alcohol and plastic champagne flutes the day before so we didn’t have to worry about remembering it the day of.
I was a bit worried about getting sea sick, especially after I ended up over the side of a boat during a snorkeling trip two days prior! I would have felt terrible if any of our guests would have gotten sick, but we made sure the Bonine, ginger gum, and Dramamine were flowing as freely as the champagne, and didn’t have any problems.
Everyone had a great time, including my 3 year old nephew. He was the only kid at our wedding and I was afraid he would get restless, but Murphy kept him entertained when she brought him below deck so he could seek out the hidden treasure chest. He went into shy mode, but with a little prodding from his dad and me he found and opened the chest. The look on his face was priceless, and proudly displayed the pieces of «treasure» she let him take for the rest of the trip!
The whole experience was wonderful. The crew was really personable and so much fun– they definitely provided a flair to the evening that you wouldn’t get most other places! Toasting our new marriage on the open sea was lovely, and sailing right out toward the beautiful Key West sunset was unforgettable.

If you are lucky enough to catch the Top Sail Schooner Wolf in town, do whatever you can get on board! We got extremely lucky to go out on a familiarization sunset sail the day they got back into town from Jamaica, and we’ll never forget it!
While the other crazy tourists in Key West were doing the sunset booze cruises on the big noisy yachts, we had an awesome sail right in front of Mallory Square. Its amazing being on a pirate ship, sitting back and cracking open a cold can of ale while an entire dock of people ooh and awe and take pictures. Then for the best part; our captain fired the black powder ‘canon’ (that thing is small but LOUD!) and just about scared the pants off of everyone. Awesome.
The crew was young but very experienced. They had a good time, but were dead serious and masterful when it came to operating and sailing their ship. This was an experience we will never forget. The only regret? No green flash. I guess we’ll just have to go out again next time we meet up with the Wolf!