Wedding Ceremonies

A symbolic ceremony has the most flexibility of all. It does not have any legal or formal significance and so can be held anywhere and officiated by anyone. It does not need to conform to any proscribed text or format nor require any documentation. 

It is undoubtedly the easiest of all types of ceremonies. The legal ceremony is generally done in your home country prior to traveling to Italy for a symbolic ceremony. You may wish to ask a friend or family member to officiate the ceremony or we can arrange for an experienced celebrant from our trusted network. 

These are weddings with legal standing and usually must take place in a civil hall designated by the city where you are being married. Fortunately the Italians are romantics and usually dedicate beautiful rooms in their historic town halls for the civil ceremony. The requirements vary based on the nationality of the spouses, but in all cases documentation must be filed with your consulate in Italy and then recognized by the Italian state. There are plenty of hoops to jump through to get there but it is usually possible to be legally married in Italy. If you have the patience and diligence to prepare the documentation required, we will be at your side to assist and hold your hand through it all.

In addition, both Catholic and Christian ceremonies can also be concurrently civil ceremonies as long as all the legal documentation has been filed with the proper authorities. 

With very rare exceptions, a Catholic ceremony must be celebrated inside of a consecrated church. All the Catholic preparation and documentation for marriage (Pre-Cana in the US) must be completed by your home diocese. There is no such thing as a symbolic Catholic wedding and there are not short cuts. Only one spouse needs to be Catholic to be eligible. We can help walk you through the process on your end and arrange for an English speaking priest to celebrate your ceremony in Italy. If there is anything that Italy has in abundance, it is stunning, historic Catholic churches and we will find the right one for you and take care of the required procedures on this end in Italy. 

A Catholic ceremony can also have concurrent legal standing as long as the couple does both the Catholic documentation and the civil documentation. These are parallel processes done separately with the Catholic and civil authorities. 

A Christian Protestant or non-denominational ceremony can be held anywhere. These are often what I call “Christian Lite” ceremonies where the couple would like a religious ceremony but one that does not necessarily follow a specific religious rite or script nor is it usually held in a church. These can be purely symbolic ceremonies or they can have legal standing as long as all the civil documentation has been completed. 

All types of Jewish ceremonies and celebrations are possible in Italy and we can arrange them all. Most ceremonies can take place anywhere and for that we can arrange for a rabbi or a more informal officiant. If you wish to be married in one of the synagogues in Italy you will need to be Orthodox with the bona fides to prove your standing. And yes, there is excellent kosher Italian catering if that is your preference.

We love planning Indian weddings. They are so colorful, joyous and fun. We are able to organize a Hindu wedding ceremony with a Hindu pandit, a mandap, dhol drummers and all the trimmings. In addition, we work with a delicious, authentic Indian caterer based in Florence, if desired. 

We have experience sourcing all the materials and in preparing the Sofreh Aghd in the traditional Persian wedding tradition. In addition we can arrange for an Iranian officiant to guide the proceedings, if desired.