Elope in Italy, Then Honeymoon: How to Plan Two Weeks

By Roberta Perrone15+ years photographing Italy6 min read

You can elope in Italy, then honeymoon here too, on the same ticket. No second trip. No going back to the office between the vows and everything after them.

An elopement means leaving out what you never wanted. A long gap between the promise and the time alone together can be one of those things.

Search for a two-week honeymoon and you get five stops and no ceremony. Search for an elopement and you get paperwork, or a tour with the ceremony as an option on three different days. I’m a photographer-designer based in Rome, with 15 years behind the camera. Here is how I would build the two weeks.

Put the day on day three

Not day one. A bag can miss a connection, and your body is still on another clock.

Not the last day either. You would spend two weeks waiting for it, then fly home the morning after. Everything else becomes the time before.

Day three gives you two days to sleep and eat, and eleven days married.

The hour depends on where you flew from, and no itinerary tells you this. In mid-October, the sun rises in Rome around 7:20 and sets around 18:30.

From Australia. At 7:20 in Rome it is mid-afternoon in Sydney. You may be awake anyway. Take the dawn, and the empty city that comes with it.

From the US or Canada. At 7:20 in Rome it is 1:20 in the morning in New York. Dawn on day three asks a lot. Take the last hour of light.

From the UK. One hour apart. Choose the light you love.

There is one good reason to break the rule: the place. If your place is the far end of the route, go there first and save the city for last. And if you are marrying legally, the town hall sets the date, so build the trip around it. The legal requirements guide covers that.

Two weeks, three bases

Five stops in fourteen days is a commute. Three bases leaves time to do nothing, and that is most of what a honeymoon is for.

Start in Rome, because the rest of Italy is close to it. Florence is just over 1.5 hours by Frecciarossa, Naples about 1 hour 7 minutes, Venice under 4 hours.

Day	Where	What happens
1	Rome	Land. Dinner close to the hotel.
2	Rome	Sleep. Unpack the clothes. Walk your route at the hour of the ceremony.
3	Rome	The elopement.
4	Rome	Nothing at all. You will want this.
5–8	Tuscany	Train to Florence, then a car into the hills.
9–13	Amalfi Coast	Train south through Rome to Naples, then the coast.
14	Home	Fly from Naples or Rome.

Book a multi-city ticket where you can: into Rome, out of the last city you reach. Then you never retrace a single kilometre.

Rome is not the only way to begin. My guide to the best places to elope in Italy has the others. The second and third bases can change too:

For the mountains. Rome, Tuscany, then the Dolomites in September, when the larches begin to turn.

For the north. Rome, Florence, then Venice in November, when the tourists don’t come.

For the sea, slower. Rome, the Tuscan hills, then Sardinia and a village like Bosa.

Only ten days? Drop a base. Keep day four.

Spend on one room

Your honeymoon rooms only have to please you. The room you get ready in has to do more, because it ends up in the photographs. It needs to be bright and interesting. Pay for that one, for the nights around the ceremony, and rest somewhere plainer later.

Then ask the hotel where the car stops. Rome’s old centre is paved in sanpietrini, small black cobbles that have never been kind to a suitcase. A taxi may leave you a long way short of the door. My Rome elopement guide has the rest of the city.

What the itineraries leave out

The clothes. Carry them on. A dress in the hold is the one bag you can’t replace by day three. Then decide before you land how they travel for the next eleven days, because they will come with you to every hotel.

The trains. Most high-speed trains require a seat reservation, and tickets can be booked up to six months ahead. There is no luggage limit on Frecciarossa. There is also nobody to lift your bags.

The photographs. You will have a selection of preview images within a week. On this plan, that is about when you reach the coast. For a day of up to four hours, the full gallery comes within 15 days, so it will be waiting soon after you land at home.

The season. Don’t honeymoon here in July or August: the heat is hard, and August closes things. May, June, September and October work. In October and the first days of November, there are fewer people around you, and the whole route is quieter for it.

The border. Rules for visa-free travellers are changing, so check the European Commission’s page on EES and ETIAS before you fly.

What the day costs, and what it doesn’t

The honeymoon is yours: flights, rooms and trains, paid directly at each place’s own price. The day itself depends on how much of the trip you want designed. These are 2027 rates:

Package	Time	Fits a trip where	Price
The Two of You	3 hours	You read your own vows, with no celebrant	€3,900
The Signature Day	4 hours	You want full design, a celebrant, permits	€5,500
The Long Day	7 hours	The day moves across 2–3 locations	€7,900
The Journey	Multi-day	You want the camera for more than one day of it	€10,500

The first suits this plan well. There is no celebrant, so you read your vows from a leather booklet I prepare, instead of a phone. You keep it, and it goes home in your bag.

Hair and make-up is €400. An extra hour is €600. If you already have a planner, photography and creative direction starts from €3,500 for 4 hours. A 30% retainer holds the date, and the balance is due 7 days before, so it will likely leave your account before you do.

Where to begin

In this order. The month. Then the day. Then the flights. Then everything else, working out from day three.

Peak dates fill first. The guide to eloping in Italy suggests 12–14 months ahead for May to September, and 8–10 for shoulder season.

Eleven days, after the vows, with nobody to report to. Tell me when you land. Then let’s make it yours.