Actual Costs for Weddings in Italy (Verona, maybe)

Vinny-Chase

Hey all,
Been reading through a lot of the posts on here regarding using wedding planners for weddings in Italy. Been reading the websites and links provided. We're at the initial stages regarding the wedding. Picking destinations etc.

We're both like minded, realise the importance of the wedding that is about us committing our lives to each other and not keeping up with The Joneses. So we're looking to have a small intimate wedding with probably about 20 - 30 people there.

None of the wedding planning sites seem to have prices and as I said at this stage we're just looking around. So we're just looking ballpark figure really.

I wonder if any one would be kind enough (if you don't mind) to let me know the actual cost, all in. Please feel free to PM me as I'm not expecting people to let the world know how much their wedding cost.

Would greatly appreciate any help you could provide guys & gals.
Cheers.

tinkerbell

I think your best bet is to head on over to weddingsonline.ie - they have a whole forum there on getting married abroad!

mikeanywhere

Would a great location and would make for a beautiful wedding that's for sure, best of luck with it

Vinny-Chase

Thanks Tinkerbell, but was kinda looking for the people on here on the various different threads who have said they had done it with such and such a planner etc.

People who have been there and done that

tinkerbell

^^ Ahh ok I've just seen loads of Italy threads over on weddingsonline so thought you might get a wider range of replies back over there

Good luck with the wedding planning, Italy is a lovely place to get married

barbiegirl

Marco at romanticweddingsinitaly.com has a price area, you just contact him for a passwrod and you can price everything on line.
Verona by the way is fantastic, The Byblos Art Hotel would be a fantastic venue not sure as to pricing though.

Karmella

I'm getting married in 5 weeks in Lake Garda! Beautiful spot - we were at a friends wedding there 3 years ago and decided to go back to the same spot as we knew the venue was good (food entertainment etc)

Now we haven't finalised all our costs yet, but for about 45 guests its looking at in the region of 15,000. This is including the travel for us, and our parents (charter packages around 5000 for 6, ours being 2500 on its own).

We are doing it all through Heffernans in Cork (so did our friends) (www.heffernansweddingsabroad.com). For a fee of 700 euros, they have organised all the legal requirements, booked the town hall, venue, given us the options available for menu, entertainment, photographer, transport on the day, flowers, hair, make up etc. We're not going the church route but they do organise this aswell. And being a travel agent, they have also provided valuable assistance in booking guests travel.

The ceremony is at the Castle in Malcesine, and the reception in the Grand Hotel Liberty in Riva (www.grandhotelliberty.it)

I can give you the costs here for various different items/ options: (We haven't gone for all these options like the music for ceremony etc)

Civil Ceremony : 550
Translator: 100
Wedding coordinator (local 2 days): 260
Transport for bridal party: merc: 220 one way, 319 return; vintage 330 o/w,396 return

Photographer: Ranges from 800 to 1100 i.e. 800 - 2 hrs, 300 photos, 990 - 6 hrs, 500 photos & 1100 - 11 hrs (!) 800 photos. You get all the photos on disc. Its reportage style (they say), but i remember our friends had some nice photos. for the 2 hrs they just do the ceremony & group photos after, 6 hrs includes before, during and after ceremony, up until the meal starts - we are going for this option.

Music: Ceremony : 750 string trio, 350 violin, 200 harp
Terrace Drinks reception (before meal): 350 piano & violin - 2 hrs
Bands: 1250 or 1040 (we were able to listen to samples of the bands on a website (www.weddingslakegarda.com ... but its down at the moment )
DJ 1000 (instead of band really)

Meal: (incl. 1/2 bottle wine pp and the cake): 70 - 4 course, 80 - 5 course, 90 - 6 course (per head)

Flowers: (for hotel/reception): 165 medium, 120 small
Bouquets: Bride: large - 130, med - 95, small - 75
Bridesmaid: large - 75, m - 55, s - 45

There are also costs for transporting all the guests to the venue for ceremony - by bus - this hasn't been finalised yet. We are also planning to bring all our guests back to the hotel by boat, including a glass of prosecco! - this is 17 euro pp. I'm really looking forward to this!

The menu options all sound amazing which is making it very difficult to choose! The food there is great.

It is a pity that website is down at the moment, because they have a lot of pictures from other weddings that they have had in the hotel...

Anyway, lastly the setting of Riva del Garda is just stunning. Its at the northern tip of the lake, surrounded by mountains, and vineyards. Its about 1.5 - 2 hrs from Verona. Verona is also beautiful.

Heffernans do organise weddings in other areas aswell - Sorrento/Positano, Rome and also one they are breaking into is in the Veneto region - near Venice & Treviso. Some of the pictures they showed us looked fab.

I don't know where you are from, but I will say that getting to Italy from Cork is a complete nightmare - and that is the only down side really. But from Dublin there are a lot more options!

good luck with your planning ..... I'm getting quite excited now!

kells74

Hello Karmella,
Its been a while since you contributed to this topic, so i hope you can assist me in a small way.
Myself and fiance are doing something very similar next Summer 2015.
We are also working with Heffernans, at this point we have reserved the castle in Malcesine for our ceremony, with reception in http://www.lavogliamalcesine.it/.

Can you recall approximately the wedding cost you for 40 guests ?
We will be paying for accommodation and flights for 6 people, including our own.

Regards
Brendan

Karmella

kells74 wrote: »

Hello Karmella,
Its been a while since you contributed to this topic, so i hope you can assist me in a small way.
Myself and fiance are doing something very similar next Summer 2015.
We are also working with Heffernans, at this point we have reserved the castle in Malcesine for our ceremony, with reception in http://www.lavogliamalcesine.it/.

Can you recall approximately the wedding cost you for 40 guests ?
We will be paying for accommodation and flights for 6 people, including our own.

Regards
Brendan

Hi Brendan, I'm not sure if I can add anything to my post above really. We had 38 guests in the end. Leaving out the flights and accom and dresses suits & rings etc. the general wedding costs were approx. 7000. This was all food & wine, prosseco, band, transport (incl. a ferry trip back to riva which I guess you won't need if your reception is in malcesine), flowers, hair & makeup & trials, ceremony, translator, photographer.

But I guess you really have to bear in mind that this was 4 years ago! I don't know if prices will have changed much since then.

There is an advantage now that there is a Ryanair flight from cork to bergamo, if our guests wanted to fly from cork they got the top flight charter, or went via stansted. And top flight are not a budget holiday by any stretch of the imagination.

Hope this helps!!

turbot

BTW, why Italy?

Unless the family is italian, you might get much better value if you go to Croatia, which is a a spectacular place for a wedding.