This Italian destination will pay your wedding bills 

So you’ve always wanted a destination wedding. Italy, maybe. In the Eternal City, perhaps. Or one of those hilltop towns — think of the wedding photos! There’s just one problem — weddings are expensive at the best of times, destination weddings involve even more expense, and these aren’t the best of times.

Step forward Lazio, Italy’s capital region. A new campaign designed to drum up economy-stimulating weddings post-pandemic is offering grants to couples getting married in the region, of up to €2,000 ($2,200) per couple.

The campaign, Nel Lazio Con Amore (In Lazio with Love), has earmarked €10 million ($11 million) of Covid recovery funds to go to couples planning weddings or civil unions to take place in Lazio in 2022. If your claim is successful, you can use your grant towards expenses like flowers, outfits or rings for the spouses, on-the-day services such as hair and makeup, photos, as well as to major things like venue hire or catering (the latter carries a maximum of €700, or $770).

Got all that covered? You can even put a maximum of €700 towards a honeymoon. The only catch with all these categories: the money must be spent with Lazio-based firms.
So where are you thinking? There’s Rome, of course — where better to commit for life than in the Eternal City? That’s what Cat Deeley and Patrick Kielty did.

Lake Bracciano, just north of Rome, was good enough for Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, though Lake Bolsena, further north, is better known. If you’re wanting a tiny, photogenic village, there’s Civita di Bagnoregio, so beautiful that it gets away with charging visitors an entry fee.

Get married near an Etruscan necropolis at Cerveteri if you’re of a gothic bent.
Get married near an Etruscan necropolis at Cerveteri if you’re of a gothic bent.

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For those of a slightly gothic bent, you could pledge your troth at Cerveteri or Tarquinia — both known for their especially joyful Etruscan (pre-Roman) tombs.
Or if you’re after something catholic, you can’t do better than former city of popes, Viterbo.