An Amalfi Coast wedding invitation, and what your guests need to know

An invitation to an Amalfi Coast wedding has more to say than one for a wedding at home. It must tell guests which airport to fly into, how to reach the venue by road or by boat, how many steps lie between the road and the ceremony, how hot the day will be, and how to get back at night.

The colour can come later, and on this coast it will look after itself. The practical lines are what guests read again on a hillside, in the heat, with one bar of signal.

When should you send invitations for an Amalfi wedding?

Send a save the date as soon as the date and the venue are fixed, and the invitation four to six months before the day. Bridebook’s UK planning timeline (2026) suggests save the dates twelve to fifteen months ahead for a wedding abroad, because guests must book flights, ask for leave and find rooms in towns that fill early in summer.

Set the reply date with your venue’s deadline for final numbers in mind, and allow longer than you would at home, because some guests will wait to see the flight prices. Our guide on when to send save the dates has a line for a wedding abroad that you can copy.

How will guests get to the coast?

Most guests fly into Naples. Salerno is closer to the coast, but check which airlines fly there in your season. Ask your venue which airport suits it, name that one on the invitation, and say how long the transfer usually takes. Name one airport only if you are sure of it. A wrong airport is harder to correct than a missing one.

The coast road is narrow and slow in summer, and the traffic rules on it can change from one season to the next. If guests plan to hire a car, ask your venue what applies on your date, and give guests the name of a taxi or transfer company you trust. For many guests, a shared transfer from the airport is the kindest thing you can arrange.

Should guests travel by boat?

Ferries link the towns of the coast, and the timetables change with the season. If you send guests by sea, link the operator’s current timetable from the invitation and name the pier for your venue. Say which boat is the last one back, and what guests do if they miss it.

How many steps, and how much heat?

Much of the coast is built into the hillside, and many hotels, terraces and churches are reached on foot. Ask your venue how many steps lie between the road and the ceremony, and put the number on the invitation. Then ask on the reply whether anyone would like help with the steps, so that a guest who needs it can tell you before the day, without a telephone call.

In high summer, an outdoor ceremony at noon tests everyone’s patience. Say whether the ceremony is outside, whether there is shade, and what to wear on the feet, because a stone stair is a long way down in thin heels. Our guide to wedding dress code wording has the lines for each dress code.

A line to copy and adjust for the venue:

The ceremony is on the terrace, [number] steps up from the road. There is shade, but please bring a hat and wear flat shoes. If you would like help with the steps, tell us when you reply.

What paperwork do you need to marry in Italy?

Start early, and start with GOV.UK. Its guide to getting married abroad tells you which documents a country asks for. For Italy, the key document is the Nulla Osta, the Italian form of a certificate of no impediment, which British citizens request by post from the British Embassy in Rome with an application pack from GOV.UK.

Italy recognises both civil and religious ceremonies. For UK passport purposes, GOV.UK says that only a marriage certificate issued by the town hall, the comune, is accepted. These are the headlines, not the whole process, so ask your venue or a local planner which comune registers your ceremony, and check the GOV.UK pages again before you book anything that cannot move.

Your guests have paperwork too. British guests must check the GOV.UK entry requirements for Italy before they book, including the rules on passport validity, and one line on the invitation will remind them.

Should the invitation be in English and Italian?

If one family speaks Italian, yes. Decide which language leads, set every section in both, and ask a native speaker in the family to read every Italian line before you approve it. A cousin in Salerno will notice a clumsy phrase before the coffee is poured. Our guide to bilingual wedding invitation wording covers the layout.

What colours suit an Amalfi Coast wedding invitation?

Yellow and blue, with plenty of white between them. Those are the colours guests will see when they arrive: lemons on the terraces, painted ceramics on shop fronts and church domes, and the sea below everything. Bridebook’s forecast for 2027 says that butter yellow is still climbing, so lemon on the coast is in good company. The skill lies in how much of each you use.

• Choose one blue and one yellow, and keep everything else white or the colour of old plaster.
• Use tile patterns in borders and small panels. A full screen of pattern makes the words hard to read on a phone.
• Set names and times in a dark ink on a plain ground, never on top of the pattern.
• Let one picture of the sea do the work of ten decorations.

The same rules hold for Positano, Ravello or Amalfi itself. If the venue has its own tiles, ask for a photograph of them. One border taken from the terrace where you will marry says more than a page of borrowed lemons, and our guide to matching your invitation to your venue starts with the place.

Before you write a word, ask your venue how many steps lie between the road and the ceremony, which pier the boats use and when the last one leaves, then read the GOV.UK pages on marrying in Italy once more.