Il San Pietro di Positano wedding

Carlino Cinque opened the Hotel Miramare in Positano in 1934, and in the evenings he rowed his fishing boat along the coast to a headland at Laurito, where a small seventeenth-century chapel to San Pietro stood above a cliff that fell to the sea. He bought the land in 1962.

Cutting the lift shaft through the rock took eight years, and the buildings three more, stepped down the cliff over nearly a dozen levels. The hotel opened on 29 June 1970 with 33 rooms. It has 57 now, and it is still the family’s, run by Virginia Attanasio and her sons Vito and Carlo Cinque.

It has been a member of Relais & Châteaux since 1989.

Il San Pietro di Positano holds three Michelin Keys, the Guide’s highest distinction for hotels.

Its restaurant, Zass, holds a Michelin star in the 2026 guide, a star it first won in 2002, under the Belgian chef Alois Vanlangenaeker, who has run its kitchen for more than twenty years.

A wedding here happens at the bottom of the cliff. The lift runs 88 metres down through the rock from the hotel’s lobby to a tunnel that opens onto the sea, and there, on the hotel’s private beach, are the lawn for the ceremony and Il Carlino for the dinner.

The symbolic ceremony is on the lawn from six to seven, and the aperitif follows there until eight. Dinner at Il Carlino begins at eight, and the DJ plays until midnight, when the music stops.

The lawn at the foot of the cliff, close to Il Carlino, takes the symbolic ceremony and the aperitif. The hotel’s ceremony package sets it with an arch of flowers and supplies the bride’s bouquet and the groom’s boutonnière; the celebrant and the musicians are booked on top.

The hotel’s restaurant on the beach, opened in 2008 and open only to the hotel’s guests, taken privately for the wedding dinner. There are three set menus, with lobster, sea bass with black truffle and the catch of the day among the courses, and the wedding cake included.

Above 25 guests, the only way to Il Carlino is by boat.

If the weather turns, the hotel offers two answers: move the wedding to the next day, or bring it forward to lunch on one of the terraces of Zass, taken privately.

Fifty-seven rooms and suites, stepped down the cliff, with Positano across the water. The hotel keeps the high season for its own guests: it hosts a wedding then only when at least three of its rooms are booked, which makes the wedding a residents’ event rather than an outside one.

Children under ten do not stay here.

The rest of the guests stay in Positano, a few minutes away, and come to Il Carlino by boat. We give the hotel’s rooms to the couple and the families, and plan the boats from Positano’s pier for everyone else.

Il San Pietro stands on La Punta, the headland at Laurito, two kilometres from Positano’s centre. The hotel runs a shuttle to Positano around the clock and has its own parking, which on this coast is worth a great deal.

Naples Capodichino is the airport, an hour and a quarter by road on a clear day and closer to two in July and August. Salerno’s airport looks nearer on a map, but the way there runs the length of the coast road, which is the slow part. For American guests, connecting through Rome or Milan into Naples beats the four-hour drive from Rome Fiumicino.

Napoli Centrale is an hour and five by road, and the high-speed trains from Rome and Milan arrive there.

The hotel suggests a car and then a boat from Naples, which takes the coast road out of the journey, and on the wedding evening the boat is the way down to Il Carlino for anyone staying in town.

Il San Pietro prices a wedding by the evening: a fee to take Il Carlino privately, and the food and drink by the head.

• Il Carlino, taken privately for the evening
• The dinner, from three set menus at €190 a head plus service, with the wedding cake included
• The aperitif by the hour, with the finger food alongside it
• The wine, from four selections priced by the head, and the open bar after dinner, by the hour
• The symbolic ceremony, as a package with the arch of flowers, the bouquet and the boutonnière
• The DJ, with the music copyright fee

The flowers beyond the ceremony package are not included, and neither are the celebrant, the musicians, the photographer or the rooms, which are booked with the hotel separately.

A Magic Day wedding at Il San Pietro di Positano, for up to 40 guests, starts at €100,000 and lands near €150,000.

Above 25 guests, the boat is the running order. Il Carlino can only be reached by sea for a group that size, so the evening is planned around the crossings. We schedule the boats from Positano’s pier for the guests staying in town and the lift for those staying in the hotel, with a second boat ready for the last arrivals.

Book the rooms before the date. In the high season the hotel takes a wedding only when at least three of its rooms are booked. We book them the day the date is chosen, for the couple and the families.

Have the weather answer on paper. The hotel’s own options are the next day or lunch on the Zass terrace. We agree which one before the contract is signed, so nobody has to decide it on the morning.

Forty is the ceiling, and it suits the place. A beach at the foot of a cliff holds a small wedding well, and we design this one around a single long table by the water, with every guest at it.

Il San Pietro gives a wedding of forty a lawn and a restaurant on its own beach, at the foot of a cliff with three Michelin Keys above it. What it leaves to the couple is everything around them: the boats, the timing, the flowers beyond the arch, the photographer, and a guest list split between the hotel and the town.

That is a planner’s work, and with forty guests on a beach reached by sea, the order of the evening is most of it.

Magic Day plans weddings at Il San Pietro di Positano from the first conversation to the final farewell.