I have recently become engaged and have begun my obsessive planning process. My finance and I have decided to get married in Positano Italy and are looking for any advice on if it is more cost effective to get married in Positano and stay in Sorrento or somewhere else? If you were to recommend Sorrento, Naples or surrounding area is it an easy commute to Positano? What are your thoughts and any opinions please? Thank you!

It is very time consuming to reach Positano, and the town is very steep. So my thoughts are that if you stay in Sorrento and get married in Positano, you might need to keep making time-consuming journeys to check up on plans, or even the day of your wedding, you might find yourself getting all dressed up in Sorrento, and the sitting for quite some time in the back of a car being take to your wedding. At certain times of year (the ones least likely to have rain), the only road that goes between Sorrento and Positano can move very slowly because of traffic.

Because Positano is so steep, if you are thinking of inviting most of your family to the wedding, is everybody capable of climbing lots of stairs?

If you can afford it, you might consider getting married in Ravello, which is very high up, and just as beautiful, but everything is flat. To save on costs, you could rent an apartment in Ravello, but otherwise the wedding party could stay a bit further down the coast, in Minori or some less expensive than Ravello. You could hire a van or two in order to bring everyone up to the wedding ceremony.

Another possibility is that there are extremely beautiful places in the Sorrentine hills where you would have fewer logistical problems for everybody, and lodgings would be cheaper, as well as transportation costs.

Sooner or later, you will probably need to hire someone in Italy who specializes in this. You might as well start looking now with google searches. The Amalfi Coast and Sorrento are very popular venues for weddings, and I doubt you will have trouble finding someone who can give you realistic answers about your budget and how to make this stress free.

There is a lot of info on a thread from earlier this year.

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...e-or-italy.cfm

Hi,
I agree that Ravello would be fabulous. But, a few years ago we stayed at the Tramonto D'Oro hotel in Praiano. There was a wedding reception going on which was lovely. The hotel sits high above the sea. The views are breath-taking. The food at the hotel was good. Also the hotel is next to a church with a court yard. The hotel could arrange everything for you. Plus the hotel has a fabulous roof top pool, if you and your guest are staying a few days. There are other hotels near by that are less and more expensive, so guest can have a choice. Praiano is on the Amalfi coast between Positano and Amalfi. Just a thought.

Have a fabulous wedding,
Yipper

I know getting married in Italy sounds great - but actually doing it is very difficult logistically unless you are Italian. All weddings in Italy are civil and it requires that you provide a lot of information about yourselves and your qualification to marry - all of it translated into Italian and notarized/approved by the appropriate officials.

Before you go too far with this I would search here for threads about this - and some recommendations for wedding planners that can help you navigate the rules and regulations.

(Many people marry in their home country and then have a celebration in italy.)