Villa del Balbianello, Lake Como – arguably the most famous wedding venue in Italy, a seventeenth-century villa on a promontory jutting into Lake Como with views that have featured in films, fashion shoots, and countless destination weddings. For couples who want the definitive Italian lake wedding, Balbianello is the answer.

Borgo Santo Pietro, Tuscany – a thirteenth-century hamlet in the Val d’Orcia, restored to extraordinary luxury and set in organic gardens with views across the Sienese hills. For couples who want Tuscany at its most intimate and most refined, Borgo Santo Pietro offers something that the larger Tuscan estates can’t – genuine seclusion.

Villa Cimbrone, Amalfi Coast – a clifftop villa above Ravello with a terrace of infinity that overlooks the Mediterranean to the horizon. The ceremony space here is one of the most dramatically beautiful in the world. For couples who want genuine drama, Villa Cimbrone provides it.

Masseria Torre Coccaro, Puglia – a restored sixteenth-century watchtower and farmstead in the heel of Italy’s boot, set in olive groves with whitewashed walls and the particular quality of Puglian light that photographers travel specifically to capture. For couples who want something off the well-trodden Italian wedding path, Puglia is one of Europe’s best-kept destination wedding secrets.

Palazzo Dama, Rome – for couples who want to be married in the Eternal City itself. A seventeenth-century palace in the heart of Rome, converted into a luxury hotel with ceremony spaces that look out over the Roman roofscape. A ceremony here is genuinely historic in every sense.