Everybody says September.
Everybody says September, and everybody is half right. September is reliable, and it is also the month when every venue, planner and photographer in the country is fully booked and priced accordingly.
Here is what the months are actually like from the point of view of somebody standing outside in them all day, which is a different question from what the weather average says.
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[ 01 ]
May and early June
The best light of the year and the fewest people. Long evenings, everything green, and a real chance of rain that most couples decide they can live with.
The trade off is that spring in Italy is genuinely unpredictable. If a plan with no wet weather option makes you anxious, this is not your month.
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[ 02 ]
Late June and July
Hot, dry and dependable. The light is hard until about seven in the evening, and then it is superb for two hours.
Build the day late. A ceremony at four in the afternoon in July puts a hundred people in full sun in wool suits, and you can see it in every photograph taken afterwards.
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[ 03 ]
August
The month Italians leave their cities, so the coasts are full and the towns are empty. In the south it regularly passes thirty eight degrees.
It can be done, and I have done it. It has to be planned around the heat rather than around the schedule: nothing outdoors before six, water everywhere, and a genuinely cool room to get ready in.
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[ 04 ]
September and early October
The most requested weeks in the country, and they earn it. Warm, stable, with the light dropping earlier and softer every week.
Book eighteen months out or accept whatever is left. If you can move to the first half of October instead, you get almost the same conditions for noticeably less money.
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[ 05 ]
Late October and November
Underrated and cheap. Low sun all day, empty towns, and a real chance of a wet afternoon.
Photographically these are some of the best weeks of the year, because the light never goes hard and the places belong to you. You need an indoor plan you are actually happy with, not one you are tolerating.
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[ 06 ]
Winter
Short days, roughly four usable hours of light, and almost nobody around. Cities work far better than countryside in these months.
It suits a small group and a long lunch. It does not suit a hundred guests and a garden.
- What is the cheapest time to marry in Italy?
- November through March, by a wide margin, followed by weekdays in any month. Venues that will not move on a Saturday in September will negotiate in February.
- Does the month change how you work?
- It changes the shape of the day. In July everything useful happens after seven. In November everything useful happens before four. The plan follows the light rather than the other way round.
- What about rain?
- It is a better photographic day than a perfect one, as long as there is somewhere to go. What ruins a wedding is not rain, it is a plan with no alternative.
- Saturday or a weekday?
- A weekday costs less everywhere, and guests who are flying in for four days do not much care which day it lands on. It is the easiest saving available to a foreign couple.