The Candlelight Wedding Chapel when it was on the Strip

It opened in 1966 as the Chapel of the West Algiers, partly because the owner, Jack Walsh, also owned the nearby Algiers Hotel. That was when Las Vegas and the Strip were very different than today.  Back then, the Strip was populated mainly with hotels, gas stations, restaurants and desert, lots of desert.  The hotels didn't reach to the street but sat back from the main throughfare and glittered like jewels in the neon skyline.

The Candlelight was located next to the Riviera and across the street from the Circus-Circus.

In the 1970s, it was renamed the All Religions Chapel. Gordon Gust went to work there and ended up buying the business though not the property or the building.

During his more than 30 years there Gust saw many celebrity weddings, and claims the record for most weddings performed in a single day at any wedding chapel is 425. Some of the celebrities married at the Chapel include Sir Micheal Caine, Whoopi Goldberg, Bette Midler, singer Barry White, and Gust's personal favorite Clayton Moore (the Lone Ranger).

In 2003 the Candlelight closed and sat for a time vacant and vandalized. Gordon Gust generously purchased the building from its owner and donated it to the County. The County found money to move the building in early 2007, when it made its way down the Strip and out Boulder Highway.

There the building was loving restored and today sits near the historic buildings on Heritage Street.

Special thanks to Joel Rosales and LeavingLV.net for letting us use the photos.