Rome weddings: which venue for which wedding

It is the easiest place in Italy to get to. Fiumicino is the country's main intercontinental airport, with direct flights from many US cities, and the centre of Rome is about forty minutes away. Guests coming from Europe land at Ciampino, closer still. Nobody needs a connecting flight, a long drive along a lake or a boat to reach your wedding, which matters when your grandmother is on the guest list.

Your guests want to come. For some of them it is the first time in Rome, and your wedding is the reason they finally book. For the others it is the city they have always wanted to come back to. Either way, the days around the wedding plan themselves: the Colosseum, the Vatican, a long lunch in Trastevere, an evening at the Pantheon. A wedding in Rome is a trip your guests would have wanted to take anyway, and they say yes faster.

There is a Tuscany at the gates of the city. Twenty-five minutes from the Colosseum, Casale del Gallo has the vineyards, cypresses, umbrella pines and stone farmhouses that couples usually drive three hours to Tuscany for. On the green north-western edge of Rome, Castello della Castelluccia is a twelfth-century castle with a magnolia terrace, a pool and rooms for your guests. You get the countryside wedding and keep the city for the rest of the trip.

The frescoes are real. In Rome you can dine in a cardinal's villa or a pope's family palace, not in a venue made to look like one. Villa Grazioli was finished in 1580 in the hills of Frascati, with a gallery painted by Giovanni Paolo Panini, and you can marry legally under it. Palazzo Shedir is a set of Baroque salons in Palazzo Borghese, with original frescoed ceilings, gilded stucco and a Gallery of Mirrors from 1678. Donna Camilla Savelli is a convent built by Borromini in Trastevere, with a Renaissance cloister garden. Nothing has to be brought in to make any of them feel grand.

And there are lakes. Lake Bracciano, with its castle, is about an hour north of the centre, and Lake Albano lies below the Pope's summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, in the same hills as Villa Grazioli. On those hills, at Villa del Cardinale in Rocca di Papa, we have already planned a wedding with the lake below and Rome on the horizon. Watch the film → If you dream of water and Rome together, we plan a lake wedding near the city individually, with the real figure for your date.

It costs less than you might think. For the same thirty or fifty guests, a wedding in Rome usually costs less than one on Lake Como: from €60,000 for thirty guests on any day of the week, against about €72,000 on the lake, and from €68,000 for fifty, against about €75,000. An elopement for two starts at €15,000 here and €18,000 on the lake. Your guests spend less too: Rome has hotels at every price, and there are no boats or long transfers to pay for. Rome wedding cost 2027 →

Donna Camilla Savelli, Trastevere. A convent Borromini built for a duchess in the seventeenth century, now a hotel with a Renaissance cloister garden, an orangery and a terrace over the domes of Rome. Marry in Santa Maria in Trastevere, walk back through the lanes with your guests behind you, and sit down to dinner without a single car journey. There is no dancing inside, so the night carries on in Trastevere. From €60,000 for thirty guests. Donna Camilla Savelli →

Hotel de Russie, Piazza del Popolo. A terraced garden designed by Valadier, where Picasso and Cocteau once picked oranges from their windows. An aperitivo among palms and roses, then one imperial table for up to thirty on the terrace. It is an elegant dinner rather than a party: the music ends at eleven. From €62,000. Hotel de Russie →

Palazzo Shedir, Campo Marzio. The Baroque salons of Palazzo Borghese, with a Gallery of Mirrors from 1678 and original frescoed ceilings, private to your wedding for the night, with a club and a dance floor downstairs. Up to forty at one table, ten minutes from the Campidoglio. From €76,000. Palazzo Shedir →

Villa Grazioli, Castelli Romani. A cardinal's villa from 1580, a listed national monument, with a gallery painted by Panini where you can marry legally, a terrace that looks across the plain to Rome, sixty-two rooms and a park. Under forty-five guests dinner is served inside, in the villa's restaurant; from forty-five it moves out to the terrace, and the dancing goes on in a frescoed hall until three. From €70,000 for thirty guests and €76,000 for fifty, Monday to Thursday. Villa Grazioli →

Castello della Castelluccia, north-western Rome. A twelfth-century castle on the foundations of an imperial Roman villa, with frescoed halls, a magnolia terrace, a roof garden and a pool. Up to fifty guests sleep in the castle, and the party moves inside after midnight and keeps going. From €73,000 for a day and €94,000 for a three-day weekend with your guests' rooms. Castello della Castelluccia →

Casale del Gallo, the Roman countryside. Three farmhouses, two pools and a lemon garden among vineyards and umbrella pines, taken over entirely from Friday to Monday, with twenty-nine guests sleeping on site. Tuscany, twenty-five minutes from the Colosseum. From €89,000 for the weekend. Casale del Gallo →

A wedding for two. An elopement on a private terrace above the Roman Forum or facing St Peter's, with your planner, a photographer, flowers, hair and make-up, a vintage car and an aperitivo, all-inclusive from €15,000. Rome elopement →

A wedding for two starts at €15,000, all-inclusive. With your guests, plan from €60,000 for thirty, about €68,000 for fifty and about €100,000 for a hundred. A full weekend with your guests sleeping at the venue starts at €89,000. These are real floors from our own 2027 budgets, with the venue, the dinner and wine, every supplier, Italian VAT and our planning fee inside them.

What moves the number most is the choice between the centre and the countryside, and between one day and a weekend. Rome wedding cost 2027 →