Sicily
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Symbolic Ceremony in Sicily: No Paperwork Needed
In late June the sun comes up over the Ionian off Taormina at about 5:37 in the morning. The Villa Comunale, the terraced garden Lady Florence Trevelyan laid out above the town after she settled here in 1884, opens its gate at eight. Two and a half hours of the best light on that coast…
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What a Sicily Elopement Really Costs in 2027
Taormina publishes two tariff sheets for civil ceremonies, one for Italian couples and one for everyone else, and the foreign figure has been sitting somewhere near 1,600 euros since the town council doubled its non-resident rates. Under two hours down the same coast, about 120 kilometers, the Comune di Siracusa will marry you in the…
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Nulla Osta and Atto Notorio: Marrying in Italy
The first thing that surprises American couples about marrying in Italy is that the most awkward document has almost nothing to do with Italy. It is an affidavit sworn by four adults, all over 18, none of them related to either of you or to each other, standing together in front of an Italian consular…
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Etna Winery Ceremonies: Who Hosts, What It Costs
On the north flank above Passopisciaro, Planeta took a set of old terraces above 800 metres and rebuilt them into an open-air theatre in the middle of the Sciaranuova vineyard, then filled it with an audience every summer. That is the scale these Etna estates already operate at on their own land, and it is…
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Nulla Osta for a Sicilian Wedding: Step by Step
The document American couples know as a nulla osta has another name on the desk where you actually sign it, and for Sicily that desk belongs to the United States rather than to Italy. It is the Consulate General in Naples on Piazza della Repubblica, or the Consular Agency in Palermo at Via Vaccarini 1,…
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Atto Notorio or Nulla Osta: Which One You Need
The legalization office at the Prefettura of Rome sits on Via Stendhal, hands out service numbers from 8:30am, closes its counter at noon, and does not open on Wednesdays. It is a small, dull, enormously important fact, and it shapes more Italian elopement weeks than any cliff or castle on your shortlist. We plan elopements…
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Sicily Elopement Packages: One Day to Multi-Island
The cable car at Rifugio Sapienza starts turning at 8:30 in the morning. In mid-June, the sun is already up over the Ionian at about 5:40. Those two numbers decide almost everything about a Sicily elopement built around Etna: if you want the lava fields in first light, you are on the mountain long before…
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What a Sicily Wedding Film Costs, Hour by Hour
In Taormina on the longest day of the year, the sun comes out of the Ionian Sea at 5.37am, and there is usable light on the stone half an hour before that. What almost nobody writes down is what happens at the other end of the day. Sunset that evening reads 8.24pm on your weather…
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Sicily Elopement Planning: Drives, Light, Papers
Sicily’s east coast faces the sunrise, and its south and west coasts face the sunset. Almost every scheduling decision in a Sicily elopement follows from that one sentence. On 15 June the sun clears the Ionian horizon off Taormina at 5:36am and drops behind Trapani at 8:34pm, two moments more than 350 km apart by…
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Sicily Elopement Photographer and Videographer
The gate at the Scala dei Turchi takes its last visitors at 19:40, and the whole site closes when the sea and the weather say so. In late September the sun goes down over that white rock at about 19:00, so the hour everybody actually wants is inside the opening hours with time to spare.…