Where you can legally marry in Venice

This page covers places where the comune of Venice will legally marry couples who live abroad: Palazzo Cavalli on the Grand Canal, the Sala Cuoi d’Oro at Ca’ Vendramin Calergi, the comune’s own palazzi at Ca’ Farsetti and Ca’ Loredan, Palazzo Persico in Malamocco on the Lido, a park in Mestre, and three private venues the comune has approved: two of the old Scuole Grandi and a beach on the Lido. One comune (the local council) covers the whole city, the islands and the mainland at Mestre, so one fee table and one office apply everywhere. The comune’s lists include other halls, mostly on the mainland, that this page leaves out, and venues, fees and days change from year to year.

A legal wedding in Italy has to take place somewhere the comune has approved: its own palazzi and gardens, or an outside venue it has authorised. Everything below is on the Comune di Venezia’s published lists, so a wedding there is legal and counts at home.

What the comune charges

Venice publishes one fee table for every venue, and the fee depends on your nationality and on when you marry. For British and American couples, the comune charges €1,700 during its service hours, €2,100 outside them on a weekday, €2,400 on the day before a public holiday and €3,600 on a public holiday. For Irish couples, as EU citizens, the same four bands are €700, €1,200, €1,400 and €1,700 (table updated January 2026). Some venues add a fee of their own, set out below.

The comune’s published hours are Monday to Saturday, 8:45 to 13:00. The table does not say which band a Saturday afternoon falls in, or which rate applies when one of you is Irish and the other British or American, so the comune confirms both when you book.

Bookings go through the comune’s online form at least seven days ahead; inside seven days there is a €500 surcharge.

Palazzo Cavalli: a palazzo on the Grand Canal

Palazzo Cavalli is the comune’s main wedding venue, a 16th-century Renaissance palazzo beside the Rialto Bridge. The wedding halls are on the piano nobile, with views along the Grand Canal to the bridge. The largest hangs Luigi Nono’s 1909 painting of a golden wedding anniversary, Le nozze d’oro, and a small adjoining salon with period furniture also looks onto the Rialto. The palazzo was once home to the American novelist James Fenimore Cooper.

The comune holds weddings at Palazzo Cavalli on any day of the week, and its tariff lists no venue fee here on top of the celebration fee. The comune suggests arriving by gondola. It is indoors.

Ca’ Vendramin Calergi: a Grand Canal palace with a garden

Further up the Grand Canal in Cannaregio, the comune holds weddings in the Sala Cuoi d’Oro at Ca’ Vendramin Calergi, a Renaissance palace with its own garden, set aside by the comune for weddings and civil unions. The inscription “Non nobis Domine” runs in Roman capitals along its ground-floor façade, and the building is now one of the two homes of the Casinò di Venezia.

The comune charges an all-inclusive €5,000 for the Sala Cuoi d’Oro (2026 tariff). It does not marry there on 24, 25, 26, 30 and 31 December or 1 January, and setting up the hall is arranged with the venue directly.

Ca’ Farsetti and Ca’ Loredan: the comune’s own palazzi

The two linked palazzi a few steps from Palazzo Cavalli are the seat of the comune, side by side on the Grand Canal and joined by overhead bridges since 1881. Both are on the comune’s tariff for weddings at a premium: the council chamber at Ca’ Loredan, hung with paintings by Benedetto Caliari and Gregorio Lazzarini, costs €3,500 on top of the celebration fee, and the Sala Stucchi at Ca’ Farsetti €9,000 (2026 tariff). Palazzo Cavalli next door carries no venue fee.

Malamocco: a Gothic hall on the Lido

At the southern end of the Lido, in the old village of Malamocco, Palazzo Persico, also called Palazzo Pretorio, is a 14th-century Venetian Gothic building in the centre of the village. The wedding hall is on the piano nobile, decorated in pink and gold.

It is a boat ride across the lagoon from San Marco. The comune charges €1,000 for the hall on top of the celebration fee (2026 tariff).

The Scuole Grandi and the Lido beach: private venues

In 2023 the comune invited owners of historic buildings and hotels of four stars or more to offer spaces for civil weddings, and it now lists three as approved private venues, booked through the same online form.

Two are Scuole Grandi, the confraternity buildings of the old Republic. The Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista in San Polo has large halls and a garden, and the Scuola Grande della Misericordia is in Cannaregio. The third is Des Bains 1900, a beach club on the Lungomare Marconi on the Lido, where the civil ceremony takes place on the sand facing the Adriatic, with the Pagoda as the wet-weather option.

The comune’s tariff sets an all-inclusive €10,000 for a private exclusive venue (2026), and each venue then charges separately for the space and its services.

Mestre: a park on the mainland

On the mainland, the comune marries couples outdoors at Villa Querini in Parco Zanzotto, Mestre, under a ceremony structure dressed with flowers and plants, from 1 May to 30 September, with a hall inside the villa if it rains. The venue fee is €1,000 on top of the celebration fee (2026 tariff).

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 paperwork you need depends on your nationality, not on the venue. The outdoor settings on this page are the beach at Des Bains and the park at Villa Querini in summer, and San Giovanni Evangelista has a garden; everything on the Grand Canal is indoors, with the canal through the windows. None of the outer islands, Murano, Burano or Torcello, has a comune wedding venue on the current lists. What changes from one venue to the next is the setting, the price and the days available.

If one of these places is the one you are picturing, or you have somewhere else in Venice 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.

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