There’s a particular type of wedding daydream that involves cobblestone streets, golden hour light spilling across Renaissance architecture, and tables groaning under the weight of authentic Italian food. Rome delivers all of this, genuinely. But the city’s wedding industry operates on entirely different principles to what most British couples expect, and those differences matter more than the Instagram aesthetic suggests.
More than 10’000 destination weddings happen in Italy each year, with many focused on the capital city. The couples who rave about the experience afterwards are invariably the ones who understood what they were signing up for. Not just the romantic bits, but the practical realities: the paperwork, the timing, the costs, the fact that Italian noise ordinances might cut your garden party short just as things get going.
The Legal Maze (& How Most People Avoid It)
Getting legally married in Italy involves the Nulla Osta, a declaration that you’re free to marry. This requires birth certificates, proof of residence, and a statutory declaration, all officially translated into Italian, apostilled, and submitted to Rome’s municipal office at least three days before your ceremony. The British Embassy in Rome no longer handles this, so you’ll need your certificate of no impediment from your UK register office first. The whole process takes 10-14 weeks minimum.
Most British couples simply don’t bother. They marry legally at their local register office, then have a symbolic ceremony in Rome. It’s simpler, faster, and means you can choose a celebrant who’ll create something personal rather than reading from a municipal script.
What Things Actually Cost
Getting married in Rome can be an expensive business. Roman wedding venues don’t work like British ones. That £3,000 you might pay for a countryside barn? In Rome, €3,000-€8,000 gets you access to the space alone. But these aren’t barns. These are Renaissance palazzos with original frescoes, eighteenth-century villas with formal gardens, rooftop terraces overlooking the Forum. Historic villas like Villa Aurelia, perched on the Gianicolo hill with panoramic views across the entire city, start at €12,000 for venue hire. Palazzo Brancaccio, with its ballrooms featuring original nineteenth-century frescoes and chandeliers, operates in a similar bracket.
Catering runs €120-€250 per person for a four-course Italian meal with wine. And it needs to be four courses: antipasti, primi, secondi, dolce. This isn’t excess, it’s how formal Italian meals work.
Many prestigious venues require approved suppliers. Villa Miani works exclusively with three catering companies. These restrictions exist because historic properties demand suppliers who understand how to work in delicate spaces without damaging irreplaceable architecture. If supplier flexibility matters to you, you’ll want to dig deeper to discover the best wedding venues in Rome that allow external vendors, typically privately owned palazzos rather than state-protected buildings.
The Evening That Never Ends
Roman weddings operate on a completely different clock. Ceremonies start at 5-6pm, often in private chapels with baroque altarpieces or in manicured gardens with cypress trees and stone balustrades. Aperitivo runs from 6:30-8pm with substantial food: arancini, bruschetta, prosciutto, sometimes pasta stations. At luxury venues, this often takes place on panoramic terraces with the city spread below as the sun sets.
Dinner doesn’t begin until 8:30 or 9pm and continues until midnight. Dancing starts around 12:30am and goes until 2-3am.
British guests find this timeline baffling. You need to warn people explicitly: dinner will be at 9pm, plan afternoon activities, eat a light lunch. Otherwise you’ll have confused relatives getting genuinely hungry around 6:30pm.
Here’s another surprise: Italian noise ordinances mean outdoor amplified music must end by 11pm or midnight depending on location. Some central venues have 10pm cutoffs. Your garden party goes silent right when British weddings typically hit their stride. The best luxury venues have beautiful indoor spaces for exactly this reason, allowing celebrations to flow naturally from gardens into frescoed ballrooms as the evening progresses.
Transport & Accommodation
Rome’s historic centre is carved up by ZTL zones, limited traffic areas where coaches need special permits arranged weeks ahead, costing an extra €200-€400. Rome doesn’t have enough taxis, so don’t assume 60 guests can grab cabs after your 2am finish. Accordingly, you’ll need pre-booked coaches (€800-€1,200 each) or private hire cars booked months in advance.
Many beautiful villas sit 30-40 minutes from central hotels through chaotic Roman traffic. Keep your ceremony and reception close together, ideally at the same venue. The advantage of choosing an established luxury venue is that they’ve handled these logistics hundreds of times and know which transport companies are reliable.
For accommodation, most couples house guests in Monti (walkable, excellent restaurants), Trastevere (atmospheric but cobblestoned and rowdy on weekends), or near the Spanish Steps (refined, expensive, home to Rome’s grand hotels like the Hassler). Book room blocks 6-8 months out for peak season and negotiate 10% discounts for 15 or more rooms.
Read: Beyond Venice and Tuscany, 7 Italy’s More Distinctive Wedding Regions
Weather & Flowers
June through August averages 30-35°C, genuinely hot in formal wear. Many historic buildings can’t install modern air conditioning due to preservation rules. You’ll need shade structures (€400-€800) and to schedule outdoor elements after 6pm. The best luxury venues have shaded loggias and indoor backup spaces that feel like upgrades rather than compromises. September and October are more comfortable at 22-26°C, though October brings higher rain risk.
Roman florists favour garden-focused arrangements: roses, olive branches, lemons, abundant greenery. The aesthetic is ‘gathered from a villa garden’ rather than ‘dramatic installation’. When you’re working with Renaissance architecture, restraint often works better than excess. A simple arrangement of white roses in a frescoed chapel can be more striking than elaborate installations competing with the architecture. Budget €2,500-€6,000 for full floral design from established companies like Fiori e Foglie or Il Roseto.
What Roman Wedding Food Actually Means
Roman caterers approach wedding food completely differently to British suppliers. The default is traditional regional cuisine: carbonara made properly with guanciale and pecorino, saltimbocca alla romana with veal and prosciutto, cacio e pepe, porchetta from nearby Ariccia, carciofi alla giudia. This is what Roman caterers have cooked thousands of times using local ingredients and generations-old techniques.
Asking for ‘modern fusion’ or ‘Asian-inspired’ dishes rarely works well. It’s not their expertise, and the quality difference between a Roman caterer doing proper Roman food versus attempting something outside their wheelhouse is substantial.
The meal structure differs from British weddings. Aperitivo food is a bonafide spread because dinner is still two hours away. Then comes antipasti with premium cured meats and aged cheeses. The primi course is usually a choice of two fresh pastas or risotto made to order. Secondi means premium cuts of meat and locally caught fish with seasonal vegetables. Finally comes dolce, which might be a dedicated dessert course or the wedding cake itself, served with espresso and digestivi like limoncello.
Wine flows throughout dinner. At luxury weddings, expect regional wines from Lazio, Tuscany, or Piedmont rather than house wine. Some couples add an open bar for cocktail hour, but unlimited spirits all night isn’t the norm.
Vegetarian is straightforward, with endless vegetable-based primi available. Vegan requires clearer communication because Italian cooking relies heavily on butter, cream, and cheese. Gluten-free is well understood, but kosher or halal certification is genuinely difficult with only a handful of certified caterers available.
One crucial difference: Italian wedding portions are generous, deliberately so. You will have leftover food. This is completely normal. Italian hospitality culture means abundance, and attempting to ‘optimise’ portions will result in a meal that feels stingy by local standards.
Read: The 22 best restaurants in Rome
What Typically Goes Wrong
The most common mistake is creating impossible timelines by spreading locations across the city. Keep things geographically tight. Second issue: not warning British guests that dinner won’t be until 9pm, leaving them confused and hungry (and, you know, drunk). Create detailed information packs with suggested afternoon activities and explicit timeline details.
Third problem: expecting Italian vendors to respond as quickly as UK suppliers. Email responses can take three or four days. This isn’t unprofessionalism but a different business culture. Either build buffer time into communications or hire a planner who’ll interface with vendors. Working with an established luxury venue often solves many of these problems, as they’ll have on-site coordinators who understand both Italian and British expectations.
Whether It’s Worth It
For 40 or more guests, Rome costs roughly £8,000-£12,000 more than a comparable UK wedding. But cost comparisons miss the point slightly. You’re not just paying for a wedding venue but for genuinely extraordinary architecture and settings that simply don’t exist elsewhere. Where else can you marry in a Renaissance villa overlooking the Eternal City, with Michelangelo’s dome visible from your terrace?
Rome forces a multi-day experience (go on then; you’ve twisted our arm). Guests won’t fly out just for the wedding day. You’re creating a long weekend where your wedding is the centrepiece of an Italian experience, with welcome drinks, group activities, and recovery brunches.
The couples who love their Rome weddings are those who embrace the differences: the late timing, the leisurely meals, the Italian aesthetic. They’re not trying to recreate a British wedding in an Italian setting. If you can do that, Rome offers something genuinely special. If you’d rather have complete control without language barriers or cultural differences, there’s no shame in choosing the Cotswolds instead. Not every wedding needs to be a destination event, and a brilliant wedding at home beats a stressful one abroad every time.
