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Getting Married in Italy


Italy's Marriage Laws for American Citizens
Two Wedding Planners



The state religion of Italy is Roman Catholicism. If you are Catholics, there are a few priests throughout the country who are willing to perform the ceremony for foreigners, but their number is shrinking because the practice has lately been considered too lax. Your local parish priest may be the best means to finding one of the Italian prelates who do perform the ceremony for those not members of their parish.


If you are not Catholics, then you must have a civil ceremony, which can be very unique indeed, because it will be in the town hall and many of these buildings are hundreds of years old. The ceremony will be officiated over by a local functionary wearing his or her city's sash, and you will be given a certificate by the city.

It is virtually impossible to get married anywhere else, such as in the garden of a villa or in a vineyard and so on. Civil authorities are forbidden by law to do that, and Catholic priests rarely want to, unless you choose a villa that also has a chapel that has not been deconsecrated. In other words, you pretty much have to do it their way, and their way involves a lot of paperwork and expense. If you do wish to have an Italian wedding, please read the summary of marriage laws below, and then please use a wedding planner such as Atlantis. If you try to do it yourselves, you run the very possible risk of finding out on the morning of your wedding day that one of the documents you have was not done correctly, and then the whole thing is off!