Destination weddings in Italy: the numbers behind 16,700 foreign weddings and €1.1 billion

Who counts Italy's foreign weddings

The survey began with the 2018 edition, presented in Rome in March 2019. CST, a Florence research company, has run every edition. Convention Bureau Italia commissions it. In 2020 the bureau created Italy for Weddings as a division to coordinate and promote the Italian wedding offer abroad, with member organisations that at launch included a regional tourism agency, a city convention bureau, a Tuscan wedding association and a Milan hotel (Quality Travel, 28 February 2020). The survey is an industry body's study of its own sector.

Public bodies support it. CST's archive describes the 2022 edition as financed by the Ministry of Tourism. Milano Finanza reported that the 2025 edition carried the patronage of the Ministry of Tourism and ENIT, the national tourism agency. The minister was quoted in the February 2026 coverage. Support and patronage are not the same as an official statistic, and no public body publishes its own count.

The 2025 results were presented at The St. Regis in Rome on 18 February 2026, during Italy for Weddings' trade event (aise, 18 February 2026). Carlotta Ferrari, president of Convention Bureau Italia, and Tobia Salvadori, its director, commented on them (Il Sole 24 Ore). The Ministry of Tourism posted a press release on its website as a Word document. Our tools could not read it, and we found no text copy. Every 2025 figure in this article was therefore read in press coverage or in CST's own short summary.

The method is documented for one year only. The 2022 report, a PDF that CST prepared for Italy for Weddings, describes an online questionnaire sent between 10 October and 15 November 2022. It received 885 replies, 517 from venue managers and 368 from wedding planners, and CST cross-checked the two surveys to weight its estimates. Other editions give only a sample size: over 1,600 questionnaires and phone interviews in 2018, 563 questionnaires and 14 interviews in 2019, 896 operators in 2024 (AGI) and 847 in 2025 (CST). No edition we found explains how a few hundred replies become a national count.

Eight years of the survey series

Read as a series, the survey shows steady growth. Foreign weddings rose from 8,791 in 2018 to over 9,200 in 2019, then from 11,130 in 2022 to 13,600 in 2023, about 15,100 in 2024 and 16,700 in 2025. The 2024 figure appears as "over 15,000" in AGI and as 15,100 in QuiFinanza, which credits data released for the Borsa del Matrimonio in Italia; its regional shares match CST's 2024 figures, so we treat it as the same series. Revenue rose from €500.1 million to more than €1.1 billion. The average spend fell in 2022 to €53,800, 8% below 2019 according to CST, and then climbed every year to €67,000.

The gaps matter. No national figures were found for 2020 or 2021, so the pandemic years are blank. The 2019 baseline was easy to miss. It appears on CST's website but rarely in recent coverage. Shares that analysts like to quote are also patchy. The US share is available for six editions; the symbolic share for only three.

The leadership among source markets changed over the period. In 2018 the UK was first with 28.1% and the US second with 21.9%. In 2019 the UK still led with 26.3%, against 23.5% for the US. By 2022 the US had 29.2%, and in 2023 the UK had fallen to 19.8% against 30.9% for the US (CST). The 2024 edition gave 30.4% for the US, 20.7% for the UK and 8.7% for Germany (AGI). For 2025 the press reports only the US share and the order of the next two markets.

Regional figures are harder to follow because each edition uses a different base. Tuscany had 30.9% of foreign couples' preferred regions in 2018 and 29.7% in 2019. In 2022 its share of events fell to 21%, the first time it had dropped that low, according to CST. The 2024 edition published shares by macro-area: 31.3% Centre, 29.3% South and Islands, 22.9% North West and 16.5% North East (AGI). The 2025 coverage gives a ranking without shares: Tuscany, Lombardy, Campania, Piedmont and Sicily.

How the €1.1 billion is built

The headline revenue is a multiplication. In 2025, 16,700 weddings at an average of €67,000 give €1.119 billion (our arithmetic). The published growth rates confirm it. Weddings rose 9.8% and the average 8.9%, and 1.098 × 1.089 gives 1.196, the 19.6% revenue growth reported by Il Sole 24 Ore and Forbes Italia.

The same check works for every edition we could open. In 2018, 8,791 × €56,890 is €500.1 million. In 2019, 9,200 × €58,600 is about €539 million against "over €540 million". In 2022, 11,130 × €53,800 is €598.8 million against €599 million. In 2023, 13,600 × €59,000 is €802.4 million against €802.7 million. The revenue is the product of two survey estimates, so any error in either feeds straight into the billion.

Working backwards gives the 2024 figures the 2025 coverage did not repeat. Dividing 16,700 by 1.098 gives about 15,210 weddings in 2024, close to the 15,100 that QuiFinanza reported. Dividing €67,000 by 1.089 gives €61,524, matching AGI's €61,500. Multiplying 15,100 by €61,500 gives about €930 million. AGI reported "almost €1 billion" for 2024, which is a generous rounding of the same series.

The average carries a lot of weight and comes with no distribution. The press does not report a median, a range or the share of very large events. A handful of high-budget weddings can lift an average a long way. Il Sole 24 Ore mentioned the Venice wedding of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez in June 2025, with a press-estimated budget of €35 to €40 million. We do not know whether or how the survey captured it.

Spending per guest gives a second view. CST's 2025 summary reports 1.1 million arrivals, up 12.2%, and about 3 million nights, up 12.8%. That works out at about 66 arrivals per wedding and 2.7 nights per arrival (our arithmetic). In 2023 the survey reported 60.7 guests per wedding and 2.9 nights. These are operator estimates of guest numbers, not counts from accommodation registers, and the nights are not separated in ISTAT's accommodation data.

What ISTAT counts, and how its number has moved

ISTAT's annual marriage report covers every Catholic concordat marriage and every civil marriage celebrated in Italy, recorded when the marriage act is drawn up. The 2024 edition, released on 19 January 2026, counted 173,272 marriages, down 5.9% on 2023. Of these, 29,309 had at least one foreign spouse, or 16.9% of the total. Marriages in which both spouses were foreign numbered 8,307, and 4,929 of those involved at least one spouse resident in Italy.

The remaining 3,378 marriages joined two foreign spouses who did not live in Italy. That is 1.95% of all marriages (our arithmetic), described by ISTAT as almost 2%. ISTAT presents them under the heading "Italy confirms itself as a destination for wedding tourism". It is the closest official proxy for destination weddings that exists.

The official series is short and uneven. ISTAT gives 4,094 such marriages in 2019, 918 in 2020, a fall of 77.6%, and 1,574 in 2021, with recovery after that. In 2024 the figure was still 17.5% below 2019 (our arithmetic). ISTAT's report text gives no breakdown of the 3,378 by citizenship, region or type of rite, and its 2025 figures have not yet been published.

The ISTAT category is narrower than the survey's in several ways. It leaves out couples where one partner is Italian or lives in Italy, which the survey may count as foreign couples depending on how operators answer. It leaves out religious ceremonies of other faiths that have no civil effect. Above all, it leaves out symbolic ceremonies.

Symbolic ceremonies and the gap between the counts

A symbolic ceremony is a celebration with no legal effect in Italy. Forbes Italia described them in its coverage as celebrations that follow a civil or religious wedding already held in the couple's home country. The couple marries on paper at home and holds the event in Italy. No Italian register records it.

The survey shows these ceremonies taking over the market. In 2022 they were 54.1% of foreign weddings, with civil weddings at 35.2% and religious at 10.7% (CST). CST said symbolic weddings had grown by about 20% compared with 2019. In 2024 the split was 64% symbolic, 22.5% civil and 13.5% religious (AGI). The 2025 coverage gives 65.4% symbolic without saying what the share is calculated on.

Applying the shares to the counts shows the scale. Symbolic events rose from about 6,000 in 2022 to about 9,700 in 2024, and to about 10,900 in 2025 if the 65.4% applies to all 16,700 weddings (our arithmetic). The survey's implied civil and religious events were about 5,100 in 2022, 5,400 in 2024 and 5,800 in 2025 (our arithmetic). On our arithmetic, most of the growth since 2022 is symbolic.

The legal remainder still does not match ISTAT. In 2024 the survey's civil and religious share implies about 5,400 legal weddings, against ISTAT's 3,378 (our arithmetic). Part of that difference could be couples with one Italian or resident partner, whom ISTAT places in its larger foreign-spouse total. Part could come from the survey's estimation. Neither source gives enough detail to settle it, and we have not tried.

The direction of change is the clearest finding. Between 2019 and 2024 the survey's count of foreign weddings rose by about 64%, from over 9,200 to about 15,100. ISTAT's count of legal weddings between two non-resident foreigners fell by 17.5%, from 4,094 to 3,378. The survey's estimate of all events, most of them symbolic, grew. ISTAT's narrower count of legal weddings between two non-resident foreigners has not returned to its 2019 level. The survey's own implied number of civil and religious weddings did not fall, so the two sources do not agree on whether legal destination weddings have grown.

Who comes and where they marry

American couples are the largest group in every edition since 2022. In 2025 they had 31.7%, according to the coverage, followed by the UK and Germany. The base of that share is uncertain. Forbes Italia and Il Sole 24 Ore call it 31.7% of requests, as do aise and the wedding blog Domani mi sposo. Milano Finanza calls it 31.7% of the total of foreign couples. Requests and weddings are different measures, so the share should not be multiplied by 16,700 to estimate American weddings. Our article on American travellers in Italy sets out the official counts for that market.

The UK has slipped from first place to second. Its share fell from 28.1% in 2018 to 19.8% in 2023 and 20.7% in 2024. The survey gives no reason. British readers will find the official spending and trip figures for their market in our analysis of British travellers in Italy. The 2025 coverage names Australia, Canada, Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, India and China as long-haul markets with the strongest growth, without figures.

Tuscany remains the first region in the 2025 ranking. The top areas named are Lake Como, the Amalfi Coast and Chianti, with growth in villages, historic villas and vineyards. No 2025 counts were published for any of them. Our articles on Tuscany's tourism statistics and on Lake Como's visitor statistics give the official accommodation figures those weddings sit within.

Rome is the only place with a published 2025 number. Forbes Italia and Milano Finanza quoted Rome's tourism councillor, Alessandro Onorato, as saying the city hosted 750 wedding events, up 7.8% on 2024. Neither says whether the figure comes from the CST survey or from city data. Our article on Rome tourism statistics explains why the city's own visitor figures need the same care.

Seasonality is shifting at the margins. In 2022, June to September held 73.7% of foreign weddings and spring had fallen from 31% in 2019 to 17% (CST). In 2024, May to July held over half of requests, and October and November reached up to 22.4% (AGI). Forbes Italia reported growth of 13% in the first quarter of 2025 and 20% in the last quarter. The summer months remain dominant.

Wedding planners are involved in about half of foreign weddings. The 2025 figure is 46.8% (aise; Domani mi sposo), against 46.3% in 2024 (AGI). Catering was the largest cost item in 2024, at 36% of spending.

Figures that circulate, and what they rest on

The survey's figures travel widely, and some arrive changed. The table below lists the versions we found in named outlets and what the sources show.

Two cases deserve a sentence each. The €1.5 billion figure in Il Sole 24 Ore is the survey's foreign and domestic totals combined: 25,200 events, of which 8,500 were Italian couples marrying outside their home region. QuiFinanza's line that a wedding "can exceed €70,000" describes the upper part of the market, and it should not be read as an average.

The paperwork: what official pages say

A legal wedding in Italy needs documents from the couple's home country and a declaration before the comune. The details vary by nationality and by comune. What follows summarises the official pages we read on 5 November 2026. It is not legal advice, and couples should confirm every step with their consulate and the comune.

For US citizens, the Italian Consulate in San Francisco lists two routes. One is an Atto Notorio, a declaration sworn before an Italian consul with two witnesses per spouse, who cannot be close family. The consulate asks couples to make contact no earlier than 90 days before the wedding, and the document is valid for 90 days. The other route is a sworn statement made at a US embassy or consulate in Italy. After the documents go to the comune, the couple returns two or three days later with two witnesses and an interpreter. Papers proving the end of an earlier marriage need an apostille and a certified Italian translation. The Italian Consulate in Chicago adds that Catholic ceremonies need no separate civil ceremony, because the clergy register the marriage.

For British nationals, GOV.UK publishes the forms to apply by post to the British Embassy in Rome for a certificate of no impediment, the nulla osta. The page was first published in May 2017 and last updated in August 2024.

The Australian Embassy in Rome gives the most complete picture. Australians need an Atto Notorio, preferably from an Italian consulate before leaving Australia. They then swear a nulla osta at the embassy in Rome or the consulate-general in Milan, at the euro equivalent of A$70 per person, paid by card in Rome. The document must be legalised at a Prefettura with a €16 revenue stamp and is valid for six months. The embassy says that an apostille on the Italian marriage certificate makes it recognisable in Australia, and warns that from May to September it can be hard to get an appointment with the celebrant or for the apostille. It was the only official page we found that addresses recognition at home.

Comuni set their own procedures. The Comune di Lucca, for example, asks non-resident foreigners for a nulla osta from their consulate, accepts documents up to six months old, takes the declaration at least two or three days before the wedding, and reminds couples to register the marriage in their home state. A symbolic ceremony needs none of this.

Venue fees and local rules

Fees for civil weddings are set locally, and the official pages we found do not publish them. Rome's tourism portal says the cost of its wedding halls depends on residence, under a Giunta resolution of 19 December 2018, and lists the halls: the Sala Rossa in the Palazzo dei Conservatori (20 seated, 70 standing), the Complesso Vignola Mattei (25 seated) and the Sala Azzurra in Ostia (about 40). It gives no euro amount. Florence's list of wedding halls gives capacities, up to 240 in the Salone dei Cinquecento, and no fees. Venice in 2023 invited owners of hotels with four stars or more and of historic buildings to lend venues free of charge to the civil registry for five years, with service costs agreed between owner and couple.

Fee lists for other places do circulate. They include a 2016 news report on Capri, a 2019 ministry release on the villas at Tivoli and a 2019 schedule for Ravello published by a wedding business. All are at least six years old, and we do not treat any of them as current.

Local rules can also close venues. In November 2023 the Comune di Tremezzina, on Lake Como, ordered an end to weddings and events at Villa Balbiano, citing its residential and short-term-rental zoning, after an earlier order on noise (Open, 6 November 2023). Mayor Mauro Guerra said the aim was only to enforce the rules. We found no official source for new 2025 or 2026 wedding rules in Venice, on the Amalfi Coast or in other Lake Como villages.

Which number to cite

What this means for travelers, businesses and analysts

Travelers planning a destination wedding in Italy should decide first whether they need a legal wedding there. Most foreign couples in the survey hold a symbolic ceremony and marry legally at home, which avoids the Atto Notorio, the nulla osta and the comune's timetable. If the wedding is to be legal in Italy, start with the consulate page for your nationality and the comune's own office, and allow for appointments, for the ceremony and for the apostille, that the Australian Embassy says are hard to get from May to September. The survey's €67,000 average may be lifted by a few large events, and no median is published, so it is a poor budget guide; get quotes. Autumn dates are a growing share of requests (AGI). For the practical side of the region most couples choose, our Tuscany travel guide covers bases and transport.

Tourism businesses and investors should treat the €1.1 billion as an industry estimate, built as weddings × average spend from a survey of 847 operators whose weighting is not published. It is useful for direction and weak for sizing. The binding facts are the shift to symbolic ceremonies, which removes the legal paperwork from most events, the strength of the US market, and the regional ranking led by Tuscany, Lake Como, the Amalfi Coast and Chianti. Anyone underwriting a wedding venue on these figures would be wrong to read 16,700 weddings as 16,700 contracts spread evenly. No regional counts exist, and an average without a published distribution may be lifted by a few large events. The assessment would change with publication of the full method, or with an ISTAT 2025 figure that rises back above 4,094.

Journalists and analysts can cite the following, with attribution to the CST survey for Convention Bureau Italia: about 16,700 foreign-couple weddings in 2025, up 9.8%; an estimated €1.1 billion, up 19.6%; an average of €67,000; symbolic ceremonies at 65.4%; and 847 operators surveyed. From ISTAT they can cite 3,378 marriages between two non-resident foreigners in 2024, against 4,094 in 2019, out of 173,272 marriages. They should not describe the €1.1 billion as measured spending, call 16,700 an official count, present 3,378 as the number of destination weddings, add the €369 million domestic segment to the foreign total, or turn the US 31.7% into a count of couples. The series finding this article adds is that the whole national picture of foreign weddings in Italy rests on one commissioned industry survey, while the official register counts a different and smaller group that has not recovered to 2019. Rules and estimates are published; a measured count of destination weddings is not.