Church Wedding – Basilica de Santa Maria Del Mar
Church Wedding
Barcelona is home to a selection of amazing churches that make the perfect church wedding location. In this post I will zoom in on one in particular, located right in the heart of the cosy El Born neighborhood – a church called Basilica de Santa Maria del Mar (Translates as: Our Lady of the Sea). It’s one of the finest Gothic churches of Spain and an amazing church wedding location. The church is quite rough and prominent from the outside and breathtakingly beautiful from the inside.
First a little bit of history:
Shortly after the arrival of Christianity to the Roman colony of Barcelona, a small Christian community was founded close to the sea. They built a small chapel for their needs, but by the end of the 7th century, the existing church structure was already known as ‘Santa Maria del Mar’.
The Barcelona colony grew quickly and during the 13th century the area was rich and well known for all kinds of ship building and import and export. This demanded a bigger church and all the merchants put money in to make it happen. Workers would spend one day a week to carry stones on their backs all the way from the ships to the church. These stones came from the quarries in Montjuic. The memories of these workers live on in beautiful reliefs on the main doors and stone carvings elsewhere in the church. The Santa Maria del Mar was consecrated by the bishop of Barcelona on 15 August 1384.
Even though the exterior of the church is impressive but a bit grimy and hemmed by the narrow streets of El Born, the inside is lovely and light with enormous high ceilings, lots of beautiful stained glass, statues and gigantic columns. The architectural design with the massive wide aisles, great acoustics and the feeling of lightness definitely make the Santa Maria del Mar one of Barcelona finest church wedding locations.
Santa Maria del Mar website: http://www.santamariadelmarbarcelona.org/home/