Where you can legally marry in Sicily

This page covers seven Sicilian comuni that legally marry couples who live abroad: Siracusa (with its old town on the island of Ortigia), Noto, Trapani, Erice, Marsala, Taormina and Palermo. Each comune (the local council) chooses its own buildings and outdoor sites, sets its own fees and keeps its own calendar. These seven are examples: most comuni on the island hold civil weddings for couples from abroad, and venues, fees and days change from year to year.

Our sister site, Married in Sicily, covers the island’s comune venues in depth, with a film of the Siracusa venues; this page is the short version for couples comparing Sicily with the rest of Italy.

An Italian civil wedding is legal only in a place the comune has designated for it. That can be one of its own palazzi or gardens, or a private venue it has formally approved. Everything below is on a comune’s list.

Siracusa and Ortigia: eleven sites, five of them outdoors

Siracusa sets out its scheme in a council decision of March 2024. Six of its eleven sites are on Ortigia. Palazzo Vermexio, the comune’s seat on Piazza Duomo, has the Stanza del Sindaco, the mayor’s reception chamber, and the larger Salone Borsellino. The former church of San Biagio, now a cinema museum, costs least.

For an outdoor wedding there are the courtyards of two former convents, del Ritiro and San Francesco, the gardens of Villa Reimann and Casina Cuti, and the Latomie dei Cappuccini, an ancient stone quarry. Outdoor sites are open from 1 April to 31 October.

Fees are the same whether or not you live in Siracusa. A weekday morning costs from €100 at San Biagio to €320 in the Salone Borsellino; the gardens and courtyards are €300, and the Latomie €620. Saturday morning costs more, and Saturday afternoon (16:00 to 18:00) most: €600 for a garden or courtyard and €1,250 for the Latomie (2024 tariff). The comune does not marry on the day either side of a public holiday.

Nine kilometres north of the city, the Castello del Solacium is one of five private venues Siracusa approved in September 2025. Couples can marry in its garden; the comune charges €300 to €500 on top of the castle’s hire (2025 decision).

Noto: the baroque palazzo of the comune

Noto is the baroque town of the south-east. The comune marries couples at Palazzo Ducezio, its seat on the Corso, built in 1746 and wrapped on three sides in a colonnaded loggia. Noto does not publish its wedding fees or its Saturday arrangements, so the comune confirms both for your date.

Trapani and Erice: a tower on the sea and a hilltop castle

Trapani sits on a narrow point of land on the west coast. Its comune marries couples at Palazzo D’Alì, its own palazzo in the town centre, and at the Torre di Ligny, a seventeenth-century watchtower at the far end of the point with the sea all round it. The ceremony there is outdoors, on the open ground by the tower, and needs an extra authorisation for each wedding.

A cable car climbs from Trapani to Erice, a walled medieval town high on the mountain behind it. Its comune offers the mayor’s chamber and the council chamber in its own palazzo, and the Castello di Venere, a Norman castle on the crag. The castle reopened in 2025 as an exhibition venue, so its exhibition diary decides which dates are open. Each comune confirms its fee when you book.

Marsala: a medieval cloister

Further south on the west coast, Marsala holds its civil weddings in the former Convento del Carmine, founded in the fourteenth century and built round an arcaded cloister. The building is also the town’s picture gallery, and its exhibition diary decides which dates are open. The comune confirms its fee.

Taormina: a fortified palazzo in the old town

Taormina holds weddings at the Palazzo dei Duchi di Santo Stefano, a fourteenth-century palazzo built like a small fortress, in the old town. It doubles as an exhibition space, and exhibitions close it to weddings. The comune confirms its fee when you book.

Palermo: two villas in the city

Palermo has several designated sites and holds weddings on Saturdays. Two of them are the Sala delle Carrozze at Villa Niscemi, the villa’s former carriage hall, approved for weddings in 2021, and Villa Trabia, which marries couples from April to October only. The comune confirms its fee when you book.

What these have in common

In every case the registrar conducts the ceremony in Italian, and if either of you does not speak Italian, the law requires an interpreter, who cannot be one of you. The documents you need depend on your nationality, not on the comune. What differs from place to place is the setting, the fee, the days a comune marries and the dates it blocks, and in Sicily the exhibition diary of a palazzo or castle also decides which dates are open. The outdoor settings on this page are Siracusa’s courtyards, gardens and Latomie, the garden at the Castello del Solacium and the ground by the Torre di Ligny.

If one of these places is the one you are picturing, or you have somewhere else in Sicily in mind, book a call or message us on WhatsApp with your date and roughly how many guests, and we will find out what the comune there can offer.

Checked October 2026.

All destinations