Villa Magia Positano wedding

Villa Magia began as a watchtower, built in the eighteenth century on the cliffs over the sea to guard Positano against the Saracen raids along this coast, and it was enlarged into a villa in the twentieth. A family bought it in the 1990s, and it stayed a private residence until 2015, when they opened it as a hotel.

It is a small hotel still, of rooms, suites, two separate houses and a villa, with two panoramic pools, a solarium and a spa, and the whole of Positano across the bay.

Luna at Villa Magia is its restaurant, on a terrace looking out to the sea and the islands of Li Galli.

The villa keeps its events small: it is a house of terraces rather than a hall, and fifteen guests is its ceiling.

At fifteen, a wedding here can be a symbolic ceremony on a terrace over the bay, dinner at Luna and the evening by the pools, with room for every guest to stay. At this size it is a house party, and the villa is built for one.

Two panoramic pools with a solarium, and terraces with Positano laid out across the bay. For a wedding of fifteen they are the ceremony, the aperitif and the morning after.

For a larger wedding, Villa Magia’s owners open Le Grotte dell’Africana, their newest venue: natural sea caves at Marina di Praia, in Praiano, a quarter of an hour along the coast from Positano.

The Africana opened as a nightclub in 1962, in some eight hundred square metres of caves almost at sea level, and in the sixties and seventies it was where the jet set on this coast came to dance. It has since been renovated to host private events and weddings.

A wedding there is a symbolic ceremony inside the cave in the late afternoon, an aperitif and a dinner, and the party that follows in the club itself.

From 50 guests the Africana is the wedding’s alone until midnight, and it can be kept after midnight for the party, with the resident DJ, live music or a guest artist. The menus run from a standing buffet to a full wedding banquet, and the kitchen’s herbs and flowers come from the Africana’s own small garden.

A dozen rooms and suites in the villa, nearly all with a terrace or a balcony over the sea, and one suite with a pool of its own. Beyond them are the two houses of Maison Magia, for four guests each, and a separate villa that sleeps eight.

For a wedding of fifteen there is room for everyone to stay.

For a wedding at the Africana the villa cannot sleep everyone, so we give its rooms to the couple and the families, and the rest of the guests stay in Positano or Praiano.

Villa Magia stands on the cliffs at the western end of Positano’s bay, on Via San Giovanni, less than ten minutes on foot from the main beach and the church of Santa Maria Assunta. The Africana is at Marina di Praia, in Praiano, about a quarter of an hour east along the coast road on a clear day, and boats can moor just off the cave.

Naples Capodichino is the airport, an hour and a quarter by road on a clear day and closer to two in July and August. 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 two weddings are priced in two different ways.

The wedding is priced around the rooms and the dinner at Luna, with the ceremony, the flowers and the photographer brought in around them.

• The symbolic ceremony in the cave, for up to two hours in the late afternoon
• The menus, from a three-course dinner with the wine at €100 a head to a full wedding banquet at €200
• The cake, the resident DJ and any guest artist, priced on top
• The cave kept after midnight, from 50 guests, at a supplement that is higher at the weekend

A Magic Day wedding at Villa Magia Positano starts at €100,000 for up to fifteen, and lands near €180,000. At the Africana, a wedding for a hundred starts at €150,000 and lands near €250,000.

Decide the size first, because it decides the place. Up to fifteen, the wedding is at the villa over the bay; beyond that, it is at the Africana along the coast. We settle the guest list before anything else, because the two are different weddings rather than two versions of one.

Design the light first. A cave by the sea takes light like a stage set, and it rewards a lighting designer more than any terrace on the coast. We design the light before the flowers.

Bring the guests by sea. The Africana sits almost at sea level in the cove of Marina di Praia, with moorings off the cave. Arriving by boat from Positano is the way in guests remember, and it keeps the coast road out of the evening.

Keep the cave after midnight. The Africana has been a nightclub since 1962, and the party is the reason to marry there. Booking the cave past midnight is the one supplement we would not skip.

Villa Magia gives a small wedding a villa over Positano’s bay, and a large one a sea cave with more than sixty years of parties behind it. What they leave to the couple is the wedding around them: the ceremony, the flowers, the light, the music beyond the DJ, and the boats and cars between Positano and Praiano.

That is a planner’s work, and for a wedding whose guests sleep in one town and dance in a cave in another, the logistics are most of it.

Magic Day plans weddings at Villa Magia Positano from the first conversation to the final farewell.