Getting married in Amalfi
Forty kilometres of cliff between Sorrento and Salerno, with towns stacked vertically above the sea. The most photographed coastline in Italy, and the most demanding to plan on.
Why here
Nowhere else in Italy looks like this, and no photograph does it justice until your guests are standing on a terrace at seven in the evening with the light going orange behind Capri. It's worth saying plainly that this is the most difficult coastline in Italy to work on, and among the most expensive. Venues are small, the road is narrow and single, and everything — flowers, chairs, catering, guests — arrives along it. What you're paying for is the view, and the view is genuinely worth it. But it needs planning that accounts for the place rather than fighting it.
Where you'd marry
When to come
May, June, September and October. July and August are extremely busy: the coast road can take twice as long, venue prices are at their highest, and finding rooms for a group becomes difficult. Ravello sits high above the coast and stays several degrees cooler than Amalfi or Positano, which matters more here than couples expect. If your date is in high summer, height is worth more than shade. Winter is not workable for most venues — many close entirely between November and March.
Your guests, the rest of the time
Positano, Ravello, Amalfi, Capri and Pompeii are all within reach, and most guests will want at least two of them. Boats are frequently faster than cars and considerably more pleasant, so I plan around them where I can. The one thing I insist on here is transport. Nobody should be driving that road after dinner, parking at most venues effectively doesn't exist, and a shuttle arranged in advance is the difference between a relaxed evening and a logistical argument.
Paperwork here
Several of the historic villas in Ravello and the civic halls along the coast are approved for legal civil ceremonies, but availability is limited and dates are taken well in advance — often earlier than the venues themselves. For foreign couples the documents depend on nationality. A number of couples marrying here choose to complete the legal marriage at home and hold a symbolic ceremony on the coast, which removes a constraint from an already constrained place.
What it costs here
The most expensive region I work in. For a hundred guests, weddings here regularly exceed a hundred thousand euros in total, and smaller weddings rarely fall below sixty. The costs that surprise people are not the venue: they're transport, logistics, and the fact that almost everything has to be brought in and taken away again along one road. An elopement or a wedding of twenty guests is far more proportionate here than anywhere else on this list.
Simona's note
This coast rewards small weddings more than large ones. Thirty people on a terrace in Ravello is one of the most beautiful things you can do in Italy; two hundred people on the same coast is an expensive logistical exercise that fights the place every step of the way. If the guest list is long, I'd suggest looking at Puglia or Sicily instead — and say so early rather than after the deposit.
Weddings I've built, here and elsewhere.
See real weddings
