Palazzo Avino wedding

Palazzo Avino was built in the 12th century, in the quarter of Ravello where the town’s noble families lived. The Sasso family bought what remained of it around 1710 and restored it, and in 1756 they added a chapel to the penitent Magdalene, which is now the hotel’s lobby.

In the 1950s it was a society hotel, and Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini were among its guests; the restaurant now carries his name. Restored again, it reopened as the hotel Palazzo Sasso in 1997, and in 2013 it took the name of the family who had reopened it.

Palazzo Avino holds a Michelin Key, the Guide’s distinction for hotels.

Its restaurant, Rossellinis, holds a Michelin star in the 2026 guide, under chef Gianni Vanacore.

The hotel calls itself the Pink Palace of the Amalfi Coast, for the colour of its walls, and its terraces look out over the Gulf of Salerno from 350 metres above the sea.

The number of guests decides the plan. Up to sixty, the wedding takes the restaurant and its terraces while the hotel carries on around it; from 61 to 120, it takes the whole palazzo, and the dinner moves out onto the lawns.

The Michelin-starred restaurant, its dining room and the terraces outside it, taken privately for a wedding lunch or dinner of up to sixty. It is where the hotel places the wedding meal at that size.

The dinner comes from the hotel’s six celebration menus, from four courses to six, running from sea bass with lemon to lobster and black truffle.

The terrace for the ceremony, over the coast. It takes a blessing or a symbolic ceremony with a celebrant, but not the legal ceremony, which happens in the town, and it carries a fee of its own.

From 61 guests to 120, the hotel asks for all of it: the 43 rooms and suites for three nights at least, and every terrace with them.

The wedding then has the run of the building, from Rossellinis to the Terrazza Maraviglia under its retractable roof, the heated pool, the solarium and the Lobster and Martini Bar. Nobody at the wedding shares a terrace with a stranger.

At that size the dinner leaves the restaurant: a hundred guests are seated on the lawns, and Rossellinis is kept for the end of the night.

The hotel’s Clubhouse by the Sea, a private villa on the water at Marmorata, fifteen minutes below Ravello by car. It opens from May to September and takes a dinner for sixty, taken privately, with the hotel arranging the transfers down and back.

For a wedding weekend it is the welcome evening: an Italian feast of pizza, fried seafood and ice cream at the edge of the sea, the night before the wedding on the terraces above it.

Forty-three rooms and suites, ten of them suites, from mountain-side rooms to suites with terraces over the sea. At two to a room the palazzo sleeps eighty-six, and a few suites take a third guest.

The Infinito suite has a hundred square metres and a terrace over the coast, and the Belvedere its own terrace with a sea view. The Aquamarine and Coral rooms and suites are the renovated ones, while the grand suites keep the palazzo’s traditional style.

Guests staying for the wedding have breakfast, the spa and the gym included, and Prosecco in the room on arrival.

For a wedding of sixty or fewer, the rooms are booked as an ordinary stay, and we hold them the day the date is set. With the whole palazzo, all 43 are the wedding’s for three nights, and we allocate them with the couple: the suites to the couple and the families, and the sea-view rooms to the friends who will be dancing last.

Palazzo Avino is on Via San Giovanni del Toro, a few minutes’ walk from the cathedral square and Villa Rufolo. The town hall is 150 metres away and the Principessa di Piemonte gardens are next door, so a civil ceremony in the town is a walk rather than a transfer.

Ravello sits on its ridge 350 metres above the sea, cooler on a summer evening than the coast below it, and Amalfi is eight minutes down the hill by road.

Naples Capodichino is the main airport, an hour and a quarter on a clear road and an hour and a half as a planning figure. Salerno’s airport is 45 minutes away, and from Ravello it is the nearer choice. For American guests, connecting through Rome or Milan into Naples beats the four-hour drive from Rome Fiumicino.

Salerno station is 35 minutes from the hotel and Napoli Centrale an hour and five, and both take the high-speed trains from Rome and Milan.

Amalfi’s harbour is at the foot of the hill, and the ferries and private boats from Positano, Capri and Salerno make the sea an easy way in, or a day out on the Sunday.

Palazzo Avino prices a wedding two ways, and the number of guests decides which.

• A fee for Rossellinis and its terraces, taken privately for the wedding lunch or dinner
• The set menus, from €190 to €260 a head before drinks, with the welcome cocktail, the canapés and the cake priced on top
• The bar, charged on consumption, with a set charge for the service and a minimum for each guest
• The Vimini Terrace for the ceremony, and the hotel’s garden if the wedding uses it, each with a fee of its own

The whole palazzo, all 43 rooms and suites for three nights at least. The hotel prices it by date, on flexible rates, so the figure moves with the calendar, and the wedding’s food and drink are priced on top.

The celebrant, the flowers, the music and the photographer are all extra, along with the hair and make-up, the fireworks and the silent disco. The hotel can arrange any of them, or they come from outside.

A Magic Day wedding at Palazzo Avino starts at €100,000 for up to sixty guests and lands near €150,000. With the whole palazzo, for 61 to 120, it starts at €600,000 and lands near €800,000, and the rooms are the largest part of it.

Sixty guests is the line. Up to sixty, the wedding takes Rossellinis and its terraces while the hotel carries on around it; one guest more, and the hotel asks for the whole palazzo for three nights. We plan the guest list against that number from the first conversation, because the budget on either side of it is a different wedding.

Walk to the ceremony. The town hall is 150 metres from the hotel, and the Duomo and Santa Maria a Gradillo only a few minutes further, so a civil or church ceremony in Ravello is a walk through the town rather than a transfer. We schedule it for the late afternoon, with the drinks back at the hotel after it.

Plan the party around midnight. The music stops at midnight in Ravello, the hour the town sets, and the party then moves into Rossellinis as a silent disco. We build the evening so the band peaks before the curfew, and the headphones come out after it.

Take the beach club for the welcome evening. The Clubhouse by the Sea takes sixty for dinner from May to September, fifteen minutes below the hotel at Marmorata. For a wedding of sixty or fewer, we use it for the night before, so the weekend has one evening by the water and one on the terraces above it.

Palazzo Avino gives a wedding a Michelin-starred restaurant, its terraces over the Gulf of Salerno and, above sixty guests, the whole palazzo. It has no wedding planner of its own, and the hotel itself recommends one for the paperwork of a civil or church ceremony.

The design, the flowers, the ceremony in the town and the running of the day sit with us, along with the three nights around it when the wedding takes the whole hotel.

Magic Day plans weddings at Palazzo Avino from the first conversation to the final farewell.