Up until summer 2012, if you were getting married in Florence in a civil wedding, you went to city hall. In a city such as Florence, that is pretty special since that means inside Palazzo Vecchio, the city hall for Florence for the past 8th centuries! Marriages take place in the "Sala Rossa", the Red Room, which is sumptuosly decorated in red, from the curtains to the chairs to the tablecloths.
Since then, the city of Florence decided to get a little smarter and offer the possibility to get married outside of the Sala Rossa, including two other sites within Palazzo Vecchio: the magnificent Salone dei Cinquecento, the heart of Palazzo Vecchio (can be seen in the photographs in the slideshow abve) and the Sala di Lorenzo in the museum section. This means an extraordinary wedding surrounding by masterpieces by Michelangelo and Vasari!
For civil weddings, you can also get married at these additional locations:
- the Rose Garden below Piazzale Michelangelo from which you enjoy a beautiful view over Florence amidst the beautiful scent of roses when they are flowering (pictured below)
- Villa Vogel, a stately villa surrounded by park in a residential area on the southwestern part of Florence.
- Santa Maria Novella complex, in what used to be the infirmary halls of the convent (location added in 2019).
- in the Bardini Museum, the Renaissance palazzo that used to house the collections of the 19th century collector Stefano Bardini, today housing many artistic masterpieces of the Middle Ages (pictured below).
In addition to these new locations, there is also the possibility to get married outside of "normal" hours at Palazzo Vecchio and these sites, which will make it easier to organize your wedding when you wanted it. Weddings can now take place Tuesdays through Sunday.
Of course, there is a price list for the locations that depend on whether at least one of the soon-to-be newlyweds is a resident in the city or not, and cost also varies depending on the day of the week the wedding falls on.
For foreigners that are not resident in Florence, costs vary from € 3250 from Palazzo Vecchio's Sala Rossa (which can host up to 40 people) to € 6630 for the Salone dei Cinquecento, with the other locations falling within that price range for the specific days and times they have set as base. While the Salone dei Cinquecento is definitely the most grand, it seats up to 240 guests so unless you have a lot of guests, you might choose a space that you love as well as can host the right amount of people. If you want to get married outside of the days and times they have set, the cost rage in higher, from €3900 to €8200 (costs have been updated to reflect pricelist changes in 2025).
With this in mind, if you have the budget for a dream wedding in Florence, get in touch with Palazzo Vecchio to organize the wedding of your dreams there or in another of the locations mentioned across Florence for a civil wedding.
In Florence, large weddings have been held in piazzas (princely weddings to be sure!) while nearby luxury hotels, palaces and villas have been converted into beauty farms and much more to host guests. As long as you can afford to "rent public space", Palazzo Vecchio will work with you and your wedding planner to make your dream wedding a reality!
For complete costs and times/days, as well as other details, check out the marriage for foreigners non-residents page on the City of Florence website (only in Italian). You can also call the Marriage Office at +39 055 276 8518 or email: matrimoni@pec.comune.fi.it but don't expect to have anyone answer in English. This is where the wedding planner actually comes in...
Practical details about getting married in Florence
While I've posted the contact info for the marriage office above, I'll be honest and tell you it isn't easy to plan a wedding directly on your own if you have no knowledge of Italian. First of all, the wedding office does not have someone who speaks English on staff, even if sometimes they will try to understand and reply. So your first hurdle to planning a wedding in Florence is the lack of the local language: if you don't speak Italian, you can try and call (but it would be better to email) and see if you get lucky and get a reply from the one person in the office who does speak some English. Otherwise, the easiest solution is to get a local to help you in the shape of a wedding planner.
Consider getting the services of a local wedding planner for this type of assistance. I recommend this over a simple translator since wedding planners know the requirements for the documents you need to to book a wedding. Not all wedding planners might offer just administrative assistance, but many do! So you can ask for help with what you need, whether it is just in dealing with Palazzo Vecchio, getting the appointments and dealing with paperwork or more. Take a look at our page on wedding planners and contact one of them to request help!
In addition, this online resource has information on getting married in Italy that is up-to-date (August 2026) on the various paperwork processes and how getting married in Italy can be done legally without the need of a double wedding in your own country (for US and UK citizens).
A dream wedding in Florence and Tuscany
If you're not interested in a civil wedding, just a symbolic destination wedding, then many of the villas across the region will be perfectly happy to plan and host a dream wedding on their grounds.
Take a look at some of the villas we've visited and found perfect as wedding villas in Tuscany!
Last update: September 2026
