Positano wedding

A Positano wedding runs €100,000 to €2.2 million all-in: €100,000 to €180,000 for up to forty guests, €450,000 to €2.2 million for seventy or eighty with a house taken whole, and €150,000 to €250,000 for a hundred at the Africana along the coast. Magic Day weddings in Positano start from €100,000.

The range is wide because Positano’s venues sell two different things.

Two of them sell the house. Palazzo Murat is taken whole for a wedding, all 34 rooms for three nights at least, and Villa Treville takes any event over twenty guests as a buy-out of the whole property for four nights. The other two sell an evening: Il San Pietro takes Il Carlino, its restaurant on the beach, privately for the night, and the Africana prices its menus by the head.

What sits outside every one of those figures is the same: the flowers, the music, the lighting, the photography and the boats. Positano is built on steps below the coast road, and much of what reaches its venues is carried in, so that part costs more here than it would on flat ground.

Four venues, each built for a different size of wedding: a villa for fifteen, a hotel beach for forty, a director’s house for seventy and a palace for eighty. Each has its own page, and the notes below are for choosing between them.

Choose on two things before the photographs: the guest count, and how the guests reach the venue. In Positano the answer to the second is often a boat.

Franco Zeffirelli’s house on the cliffs a few minutes east of the town, four villas stepping down the rock to the sea with Positano across the water, and a hotel of sixteen suites since 2016. Any event over twenty guests takes the whole property for four nights, for up to 70, and the comune will hold the civil ceremony at the villa itself.

Read the full Villa Treville wedding guide for the buy-out, the suites and what a wedding there costs.

A hotel built down a cliff on the headland at Laurito, two kilometres east of the town, with a lift cut through the rock to its own beach. A wedding here is for up to forty, with the ceremony and the aperitif on the lawn at the foot of the cliff and the dinner at Il Carlino, the hotel’s restaurant on the beach, and above 25 guests the only way in is by boat.

Read the full Il San Pietro di Positano wedding guide for the beach, the rooms and what a wedding there costs.

A palace in the middle of the town, beside Santa Maria Assunta, on the lane down to the Spiaggia Grande, with a garden of palms and citrus around it. It is taken whole for a wedding, all 34 rooms for three nights at least, for up to 80 guests, with the ceremony in the garden or at the church next door and the dinner under the palms or in the courtyard.

Read the full Palazzo Murat wedding guide for the garden, the rooms and what a wedding there costs.

An eighteenth-century watchtower on the cliffs at the western end of the bay, now a small hotel with two pools and a restaurant, Luna, on a terrace over the sea. It takes a wedding of up to fifteen, and for more guests its owners open Le Grotte dell’Africana, the sea cave at Praiano that has been a nightclub since 1962.

Read the full Villa Magia Positano wedding guide for the villa, the cave and what a wedding at each costs.

Positano runs down a ravine from the coast road to the sea, and its venues sit in the middle of the town, on the cliffs at the western end of the bay, and along the coast to the east.

The middle of the town is the Spiaggia Grande, the pier and Santa Maria Assunta, with Palazzo Murat beside the church. Everything here is on foot, down lanes and steps.

The western end of the bay, toward Fornillo beach, is Villa Magia on its cliff, less than ten minutes’ walk from the church.

East along the coast road are Villa Treville, a kilometre out at Arienzo, and Il San Pietro on the headland at Laurito, two kilometres from the centre, both looking back at the town.

The town hall is at the top, high above the town with its terrace over the bay, and Praiano, a quarter of an hour east, has the Africana for a wedding that outgrows the town.

Yes: at the town hall, or at Villa Treville, where the comune’s officer holds the civil ceremony at the villa itself. At the other three venues on this page the ceremony is symbolic, so a wedding there is two ceremonies: the legal one in the town, and a symbolic one at the venue.

The town hall stands high above the town, with a terrace over the bay and an indoor hall if the weather turns, and it marries couples from Monday to Saturday. The ceremony is in Italian, with an interpreter, and a Catholic wedding can be held at Santa Maria Assunta, beside Palazzo Murat.

So choose the venue knowing which ceremony it can hold.

The paperwork is the same as anywhere on the coast: a nulla osta from your embassy, sworn translations, apostilles and an interpreter, and for American couples a sworn declaration made at the consulate in Naples. The Amalfi Coast guide sets out every step.

Midnight, set by Positano’s town hall, and the venues on this page keep to it.

At Il San Pietro the DJ plays on the beach until twelve, and Villa Treville and Villa Magia stop at midnight too. Palazzo Murat stands among the houses of the town centre, so the music in its courtyard stays soft and acoustic.

A party that wants to go on has to move: onto a boat off the Spiaggia Grande, or along the coast to the Africana at Praiano, which has been a nightclub since 1962 and can be kept after midnight.

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.

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

By sea, the ferries and private boats from Naples, Sorrento, Capri and Amalfi land at Positano’s pier, at the foot of the Spiaggia Grande, and in season it is the easy way in. Cars stop above the centre, and the last stretch to most of the town is on foot.

April to October, with June and September the months to aim for. Outside those months Positano closes almost entirely, its hotels and beach restaurants shut from early November until the spring.

In July and August the town and the coast road are at their fullest. A wedding in the middle of Positano shares every lane with day visitors then, and a transfer along the coast road can take twice as long, so September is the month we push for.

Positano’s venues sleep their weddings in very different numbers.

Palazzo Murat, taken whole, sleeps about 76 in its 34 rooms, so almost every guest at a wedding of eighty sleeps in the palace. Villa Treville sleeps forty in its sixteen suites, and with seventy at the wedding the rest stay in the town, with the villa’s boat to the pier in season. Villa Magia sleeps around fifty, which houses a wedding of fifteen with room to spare.

Il San Pietro has 57 rooms, but it is not taken whole, and in the high season it hosts a wedding only when at least three of its rooms are booked. Beyond the venues, Positano’s hotels are small and full in summer, and they book early.

We hold blocks twelve months out, weighted toward the venue’s own rooms, and publish one guest page with the boats, the cars and the walks.

Count the guests before you choose the view. Positano’s venues are sized rather than stretched: fifteen at Villa Magia, forty at Il San Pietro, seventy at Villa Treville and eighty at Palazzo Murat. Here the guest count picks the venue before anything else does.

Plan the boats as carefully as the cars. Il Carlino is reached by sea above 25 guests, Villa Treville runs its own boat to the pier in season, and the Africana keeps moorings off its cave. We schedule the road as the backup for every crossing, because a wedding cannot wait for the swell to drop.

Decide where the party goes at midnight. The hour is the same across the town, so the question is the next room: a boat off the Spiaggia Grande, or the Africana along the coast.

Two ceremonies, one day. Outside Villa Treville, the legal ceremony is at the town hall or in church, and the symbolic one at the venue. We schedule them as one day, with the town hall first and the venue in the evening.

Everything is carried. Positano is lanes and steps below the coast road. We time the deliveries for the early morning, book the porters, and tell the guests to pack light.

Magic Day has been established on the Amalfi Coast since 2015.

A Positano wedding planner’s work is logistics in a town built on steps: guests brought down from the coast road or in from the sea, a legal ceremony at the top of the town, and a party that has to move at midnight.

What the venues cover is generous: a director’s house on the cliff, a hotel beach at the foot of one, a palace beside the church and a villa over the bay. What sits outside them is the production, the paperwork for the legal ceremony, the boats and the transfers from Naples.

Magic Day has planned weddings across 11 countries since 2008. As a Positano wedding planner, the first thing we ask is the guest count, because in Positano that number chooses the venue.