Im planning on getting married in Tuscany 2006. We are expecting about 60 to attend the wedding. First of all Im trying to decide on a good base city... Siena, Florence or a smaller village or town in Tuscany? We are all relitively young therefore would need good restaurants, shopping, sites etc to keep the party occupied; therefore we dont want somewhere too quiet. Also if we base ourselves in one of these cities/towns we may not have the wedding in the hotel we are staying in as we may rent a villa in the country side thus making the most of the views. Im struggling to decide..... Should people check out of the base hotel on the morning of the wedding and stay at the villa the wedding night or should they be transported back to hotel?? Any advice to make things run smoothly. I will hire a coach to transport pax. Thanks in advance!! xx
This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kim,
Personally, I love Siena so would choose it as the city. From there you can find many wonderful places to get married at (southern Tuscany, the Chianti, etc.) I would transfer people back to their hotels the night of the wedding. One thing though, to get married legally in Italy you will need to do so in the room of the comune that is used for weddings. If you are having a catholic wedding I believe you would have to do it in a church only. Any other religious ceremonies would first have to be done in the comune and then they can be done by your choice of church representative.
As an FYI, getting married in Florence costs a lot of money for the room (I think the last I heard it was €875) the room in Siena is a tenth of that.
My favorite place for weddings in Siena is Le Volte di Vico Bellowhich has a church so a catholic ceremony could be held here. They do loads of weddings but their Wedding Pageis only in Italian (but you can look at the photos)
Thanks Cristina for your reply. Just one more thing...if I choose Siena whats the best way to get to it. Flights from Dublin only fly into Bologna, Pisa, Rome etc.... Which airport would be best and how would we get to town. Would you recommend a coach to hire or train. Thanks
Siena is nice but maybe too quiet for young partyin people, I would vote for Florence for the sojourn maybe the wedding reception you could have in a villa in the hills of Florence.
A friend of mine named Miriam Wiesling is an official tourguide and organizer of special events. She has 18 weddings scheduled just for this year. Her website iw www.miracoli.it
She can organize anything from rides in classic cars or a ferrari to special musical events or surprize partys.
Thanks Robert, I support I want the best of both worlds!I want to be based in a lively town with plenty of shopping, restaurants etc... but I would also like the wedding venue in the country side as I believe the scenery is fantastic. I would like the venue to be within 30mins drive from the hotel we'd be based in.
Both Florence and Siena could fit the description. Florence is a little more urban, I mean it's beigger and it has clubs and such places. In Siena you can have great shopping and restaurants too, though. And both Siena and Florence are less than 30 minutes from very nice countryside locations where you can hold your marriage reception.
Hello! I'm a Canadian who got married in Siena last May. As us and our guests are also quite young, it was important for us to stay in a place that had stuff to do - Siena was perfect. Florence is great, but Siena has a much more "Tuscan" feel to it. If you're Catholic, you can pretty much get married anywhere - but if you're having a civil ceremony, it has to be in the town hall. Hope that helps! If you'd like to see pics from our wedding in Siena (civil ceremony) or have ANY questions at all, please feel free to email me.
As a foreigner who has been there, done that - I can probably be an excellent source of insight for you!!
By the way, often enough you can rent a villa for all of your guests at a much better price than a hotel would cost ...
Hi JC, I also am trying to organise a wedding in Tuscany but it is for 2007 from Ireland. Have you decided on a venue or a planner? We are flying over tomorrow evening for a few days to have a look around and I would appreciate it if you could let me know how you got on and give me a few pointers? Thanks
I know it is not strictly related to the question, but how is that they make it so much more difficult and painful for us Italians to get married in Italy than for foreigners?!
Crissy rightly says that if you are catholic you can get married wherever you want, but if you are catholic AND Italian you have to go through 10 different priests before getting permission to get married in a church which is not your own. God forbid you have residency in one city but forgot to move your "parish residency". I have changed my address so many times that nobody knows where my parish is anymore!!!
Then there is the compulsory corso prematrimoniale, these diabolic 8 lessons about family, marriage, sexuality and similar stuff.
Then you have to pass an exam.
Then you have the bourocratic hassle from the civil authorities AND from the religious one, such as the certificate stating that you have never been religiously married before.
Then, if your future husband happens to be a foreigner... well, it becomes a nightmare for him as well (I am afraid it is inhereted from my italianness which is bound to the inevitable bourocracy): how is a person going to get a similar certificate from a state that does not records the absence of something!!!?!?!?
Maybe I should pretend to be an American coming to Tuscany to get married...
I know! And we even thought about it. But my granma would never get on the plane, whereas Marcel's family has no trouble crossing the ocean. I would have loved a beautiful atumn wedding in Canada!!!
Gloria, I suspect that very few contributors of this forum had a Catholic marriage in Italy.
Also, I do not believe that a Catholic marriage can be had wherever you wish. Try it in actual life, and you are bound to get hard answers. I know a parish priest that was approached by a very very famous rockstar, to hire his country church for a marriage. No problem with money. God knows if the little church needed the money, but as the rockstar was not catholic, the church was not given. He ended marrying at the Episcopalian church.
It's not that easy to get married here in the Catholic church.My wife is Catholic and wanted to follow the family tradition of getting married in the church.We don't attend church regularily,the actual ceremony took place not in California but in Scranton,Pa.by a family member who at that time still was the active bishop of Scranton.
First we had to talk to the local priest.He made it seem like we were some sort of freaks,and that our marriage would never work. Then we had to take a 200 question test,then talk to a counselor who then reported back to the priest."You mean that you don't want to have kids? Have you talked to your mother about this? Like she has anything to do with it. Then the ultimate TORTURE.
ENGAGED ENCOUNTER WEEKEND. We were the oldest in the group as mid 30's.They had a priest and some married couples talking about issues that would be obvious to any normal adult.Like "you may have disagreements" Shocking! after the first day of 3, I literally could not take it,it was scheduled for 8am to 8pm.so I said we need to leave NOW! we went to a hotel and had dinner with a memorable Elvis impersonator.We came back to get our certificate. Only then could we get married.
We could have just asked the Bishop for permission.I hope those 3 days of my life will be redeemed somehow.so far we have proved the priest wrong and have been married 12 years. RR
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