Planning a Destination Wedding in Lake Como, the French Riviera, the Amalfi Coast & Monaco: The Complete Guide
Every couple who reaches out about a wedding on Lake Como, the Riviera, the Amalfi Coast, or in Monaco is somewhere in the same journey: they've fallen for a place, and now they need to turn that feeling into a budget, a legal plan, a vendor team, and a working timeline. That's the part nobody's Pinterest board prepares you for.
This guide is organized the way the planning process actually unfolds, with real numbers and trade-offs for all four destinations side by side. You don't need to read it start to finish — jump to whichever chapter matches where you are right now.
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4 destinations compared · 8 planning stages · updated for 2026
A few things worth knowing before you start
You don't need to legally marry in any of these four places. Nearly every international couple handles the legal paperwork quietly at home and treats the destination ceremony as symbolic — Monaco makes this closer to mandatory, since only residents can marry there legally.
Good venues on Lake Como and the Riviera book 12–24 months out; the Amalfi Coast's limited venue capacity often pushes that to 18–24 months for peak season.
Venue and catering together typically eat 50–60% of the total budget across all four destinations.
Late May through June and September consistently outperform July and August for both light and comfort, across all four destinations.
A destination-fluent planner isn't optional for most couples — the paperwork, vendor coordination, and on-the-ground logistics are genuinely difficult to manage remotely.
🗺️ Chapter 1: Choosing Your Destination
This is the decision everything else depends on, and it deserves its own deep dive rather than a rushed paragraph here. If you haven't settled on a destination yet, start with the full comparison: Lake Como vs French Riviera vs Amalfi Coast vs Monaco, which breaks down budget, guest capacity, legal process, light, and venue suggestions for all four side by side. Once you've narrowed it down, the rest of this guide will make a lot more sense applied to your specific destination.
💰 Chapter 2: Budgeting Your Wedding
The four destinations sit at genuinely different price points, and the gap is wide enough that it's worth confirming your destination fits your budget before you fall further in love with a venue you can't actually book.
Rough all-in ranges for a full, planner-led celebration in 2026:
Amalfi Coast€70,000–€110,000for 80 guests at the "classic" tier — the most affordable of the four, largely because venues are smaller.
Lake Como€120,000–€300,000for 60–100 guests.
French Riviera€100,000–€200,000+for 80 guests on the coast (the hinterland around Grasse and Mougins runs lower).
Monaco€180,000–€400,000for a mid-size celebration — a different category entirely, driven by venue exclusivity and guest-experience expectations rather than headcount.
Within that total, venue and catering together typically account for 50–60% of spend at all four destinations. Planners run €6,000–€10,000 on Lake Como (or 10–20% of total budget), €5,000–€15,000 on the Riviera, €9,000–€18,000 for full-service coordination on the Amalfi Coast, and start around €5,000–€8,000 in Monaco but climb well past €20,000 for full-service work on larger celebrations there. Photography and videography — covered in full in Chapter 5 — typically account for another 8–12%, with florals and styling around 8–10%. The remaining 15–20% covers entertainment, hair and makeup, stationery, favours, and the miscellaneous costs that always turn up in the final weeks.
As a rough shape for an 80-guest Lake Como wedding at €180,000: venue and catering around €100,000, planner around €15,000, photography and videography around €13,000, florals around €15,000, with the remaining €37,000 spread across entertainment, hair and makeup, transfers, and contingency. The exact split shifts by destination and priority — a couple who cares most about the visual side of the day will often reallocate from entertainment toward photography and florals, and a planner can help you do that deliberately rather than by accident.
The costs that catch couples off guard are rarely the headline items. They're the boat transfers on Lake Como (€2,000–€8,000 depending on guest count), the minibus fleets required on the Amalfi Coast's narrow roads (regular coaches can't navigate Positano), the per-person catering minimums at Monaco's grand hotels, and VAT — typically excluded from quoted prices across all four destinations and worth confirming before you sign anything.
⚖️ Chapter 3: Legal Requirements
This is the section couples most often get wrong going in, because the assumption is usually "we'll just get married there," and the reality is more layered.
🇫🇷 France (Riviera)The civil ceremony must take place at the local mairie — full stop, no venue exception, regardless of how prestigious the property is. Most international couples hold the legal ceremony at home before flying out, then treat the Riviera ceremony as symbolic.
🇮🇹 Italy (Lake Como & Amalfi Coast)The process runs through a nulla osta (no-impediment certificate) from your embassy or consulate, which can mean a 4–8 week wait for an appointment in peak season. A small number of venues — concentrated in the Italian Lakes and Tuscany — are actually licensed to host a legally binding civil ceremony on-site, worth asking your specific venue about directly.
🇲🇨 MonacoThe strictest of the four. A civil marriage requires one spouse to have held Monaco residency for at least 30 days before the ceremony, which rules it out for almost every visiting couple. Virtually all international weddings in Monaco are symbolic, with the legal marriage completed separately at home or in a neighbouring French commune.
In practice, this means the destination ceremony — wherever you choose — is very likely to be the emotional and photographic centrepiece of your day, not the legally binding one. That's worth knowing early, because it changes how much weight you put on finding a venue licensed for legal ceremonies versus simply finding the venue you love.
☀️ Chapter 4: Choosing Your Season
Late May through June, and September, are the strongest months for all four destinations — long warm evenings without the intense midday heat, haze, and crowds of July and August. A few destination-specific notes:
🇮🇹 Lake Como runs its full wedding season roughly April through mid-October, with winter weddings rare and largely confined to venues with substantial indoor space.
🇮🇹 The Amalfi Coast has the narrowest practical window of the four: late May into June, then September, with July and August bringing both peak heat and peak crowds to already-narrow roads.
🇲🇨 Monaco skews slightly later in spring — April through June, and late September into October — and one date is worth actively avoiding regardless of your preferences: the Monaco Grand Prix weekend in late May, when the entire Principality is booked out.
🇫🇷 The French Riviera follows the general pattern but is worth booking around August specifically, when heat and haze both peak along the coast.
If you're weighing this alongside a photographer's calendar, late spring and early autumn are also when most established destination photographers are busiest — another reason the 12–24 month booking window matters as much for your vendor team as for your venue.
🤝 Chapter 5: Building Your Vendor Team
A planner is close to essential for all four destinations unless you already have deep local knowledge — the combination of language, paperwork, and vendor coordination is genuinely hard to manage well from abroad. See Chapter 2 for planner cost ranges by destination.
Photography and videography run roughly €4,000–€9,000 for photography on Lake Como or the Amalfi Coast, €3,500–€15,000+ on the French Riviera depending on tier, and €6,000–€15,000+ in Monaco, where the market caters almost exclusively to ultra-high-net-worth clients. Videography typically tracks a little below photography at each destination. What actually varies quote to quote is what's included — second shooter, drone, engagement session, album, turnaround time — so compare those line items, not just the headline day rate. A photographer who already knows your specific venue, from where the light falls at 6pm on a Como terrace to which roads close for the Amalfi ferragosto crowds, tends to save more in stress and reshoots than their fee, which is exactly why local, destination-specific experience commands a premium at all four.
Catering works differently by country, and the per-person cost reflects that. On the Riviera and elsewhere in France, a traiteur builds a custom menu around seasonal regional ingredients, typically €120–€250 per person, and venue contracts often allow you to bring in an external caterer of your choice. In Italy — Como and Amalfi both — hotels typically require in-house catering with per-person minimums (roughly €200–€300 on Como, €180–€250 on the Amalfi Coast), while private villas usually work from an approved-supplier list. In Monaco, catering is almost always handled in-house by the venue, at a corresponding premium to all three.
Florals, hair and makeup, and entertainment round out the team and are worth budgeting 8–10% of total spend for florals specifically; the other categories vary widely enough by guest count and ambition that a planner's guidance is more useful than a general range here.
🏛️ Chapter 6: Choosing Your Venue Type
Across all four destinations, venues fall into roughly three categories, and each comes with real trade-offs beyond aesthetics.
Private villas & estatesThink Villa del Balbianello on Como, Villa La Vigie near Monaco, Villa Cimbrone on the Amalfi Coast. The most exclusive, most photogenic settings — but usually no in-house infrastructure. That means an approved-caterer list, rented furniture and lighting, and often no on-site guest accommodation, which pushes logistics onto your planner.
Five-star hotelsGrand Hotel Tremezzo, the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Belmond Hotel Caruso, the Hôtel de Paris. Trade a little exclusivity for built-in event infrastructure, in-house catering, and guest rooms on-site, which genuinely simplifies a multi-day weekend. Usually the calmer choice logistically, at a corresponding cost.
Licensed public / semi-public venuesVilla Erba on Como, the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, Le Park Mougins on the Riviera. Sit between the two: dedicated event infrastructure without full hotel-level accommodation, often at a lower base rental than a comparable villa or hotel buyout.
Guest capacity is the practical filter worth applying early: Como comfortably hosts 150+ at its larger villas, the Riviera flexes from 50 to 200+, Amalfi Coast venues mostly cap out at 40–60 given the coast's geography, and Monaco stays small and curated by nature. If your guest list is already set, it will rule some venues out before aesthetics even enter the conversation.
✈️ Chapter 7: Guest Experience & Logistics
This is the chapter your guests will silently thank you for if you get it right.
Lake Como~1 hour from the Milan airports, with boat transfers a non-negotiable part of getting between lakeside venues — a logistics line, but also one of the most cinematic parts of the day.
French RivieraThe most straightforward of the four: Nice airport, direct flights from across Europe, and easy road access to most venues.
Amalfi CoastThe most demanding: 1.5–2 hours from Naples airport, narrow coast roads that rule out full-size coaches, and minibus or boat transfers as the only realistic options.
MonacoThe simplest of all: 30 minutes from Nice airport, with a helicopter transfer option for a genuinely memorable arrival.
Accommodation strategy follows venue type from Chapter 6: hotel venues largely solve this themselves, while villa venues need a nearby hotel block or a cluster of rental properties, best sorted 6–12 months out once your guest list firms up. Whatever the destination, a simple guest-facing travel page — direct flights, transfer options, recommended accommodation — heads off most of the logistical questions you'd otherwise field individually.
📅 Chapter 8: Your Wedding Weekend, Structured
Nearly all destination weddings across these four locations run as a weekend rather than a single evening, and the shape is fairly consistent:
Friday
Welcome dinner — often more casual, sometimes at a second venue.
Saturday
Ceremony and reception — the main event.
Sunday
Farewell brunch before guests head home.
Amalfi Coast celebrations sometimes compress this given venue capacity and cost constraints, and Monaco's compact scale often means a single, more concentrated evening rather than a full three-day arc — but the instinct to give guests more than one shared moment, rather than one long evening, holds across all four.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost to plan a wedding across these four destinations?
Realistic 2026 all-in ranges run from roughly €70,000 on the Amalfi Coast up to €400,000+ in Monaco, with Lake Como and the French Riviera in between. See Chapter 2 for the full breakdown by category.
Do we need a wedding planner?
Not legally required anywhere, but close to essential in practice — the language, paperwork, and vendor coordination involved in planning remotely are genuinely difficult without one, particularly on the Amalfi Coast and in Monaco.
What's the best month to get married at these destinations?
Late May through June, and September, across all four — avoiding the heat, haze, and crowds of July and August while still getting long, warm evening light.
How far in advance should we start planning?
Twelve to twenty-four months for Lake Como and the Riviera; eighteen to twenty-four months for the Amalfi Coast given its limited venue capacity; eight to twelve months out is realistic for Monaco once a venue is secured, given its smaller, more curated scale.
Do we need to legally marry at the destination itself?
No — nearly all international couples marry legally at home and hold a symbolic ceremony at the destination. Monaco is the exception where this is closer to mandatory, since civil marriage there requires 30 days of residency.
Which of the four is easiest for guests, logistically?
The French Riviera and Monaco, both served well by Nice airport with straightforward transfers. The Amalfi Coast is the most demanding, given narrow roads and limited large-coach access.
What hidden costs should we budget for beyond venue and catering?
Boat transfers on Lake Como, minibus fleets on the Amalfi Coast, per-person catering minimums in Monaco, and VAT — usually excluded from quoted prices at all four destinations. Building a 10–15% contingency into your total budget covers most of what quoted prices leave out.
Does catering work the same way at all four destinations?
No. France operates on a traiteur model with more flexibility on outside caterers; Italian hotels and villas either handle catering in-house or work from an approved-supplier list; Monaco venues cater in-house almost without exception, at the highest per-person cost of the four.
Constantin Weddings photographs luxury destination weddings across Lake Como, the French Riviera, the Amalfi Coast, and Monaco. If you're working through this planning process right now, get in touch — happy to talk through what a realistic timeline looks like for your date.
