Celebrities from around the world keep choosing Italy to get married: Jeff Bezos in Venice in 2025, Justin Timberlake in Puglia, John Legend on Lake Como, and in June 2026 Dua Lipa in Sicily. Their weddings draw a map of the country’s most coveted places. But around each of those postcard destinations lies a second ring of towns, hills and coastlines — far less photographed — where the same landscapes stop being the backdrop to a single day and become an address. This article starts at the ten weddings and travels just beyond them.
Beyond Bezos's lagoon, the Riviera del Brenta where time slows down
There are mornings when the lagoon turns to glass and the island of San Giorgio Maggiore seems to float in mid-air. This is the Venice the whole world watched in June 2025, when Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez married there across three days of celebrations, with around two hundred guests from Oprah Winfrey to Bill Gates.
Venice needs no introduction — and no one needs telling how hard it is to live there. Its magic, though, does not end where the salt water does. Follow the Brenta river toward Padua and you reach the Riviera del Brenta, the waterway Venetian nobility chose for their country residences as early as the 1500s.
Between Mira, Dolo, Stra and Mirano, dozens of *ville venete* (Venetian country villas) line the river. Villa Pisani at Stra, with its maze and Tiepolo ceilings, is only the most famous. It is a landscape of gardens and canals, half an hour from the Rialto and a breath from Padua.
For anyone who dreams of Venice but wants a place to truly live in, the Venetian mainland is a discovery. Some of these historic villas, divided into apartments or sold to restore, are among the most romantic opportunities in the Veneto — well worth searching for patiently before settling for the first postcard.
The Tigullio that Portofino's postcards never frame
A tiny square, a half-moon of pastel houses, a few boats at anchor: Portofino is perhaps the most photographed fishing village in Italy. Here, in May 2022, Kourtney Kardashian and drummer Travis Barker crowned a celebration staged entirely by Dolce&Gabbana, with the ceremony at Villa Olivetta and the reception at Castello Brown, perched above the little harbour.
Portofino is tiny and unrepeatable. But it is the tip of a whole gulf, the Tigullio, which runs for miles with the same sea and a far more everyday life. Santa Margherita Ligure, elegant and lively all year, is minutes away. Then Rapallo, with its seafront and cable car to the Montallegro sanctuary, and Zoagli clinging to the cliffs.
Further east the gulf offers Chiavari, a town of arcades and craft workshops, and Sestri Levante with its twin bays — the Baia del Silenzio and the Baia delle Favole, named in honour of Hans Christian Andersen. Behind them opens the green Val Fontanabuona.
Anyone after the Liguria of magazine covers, but lived in twelve months a year, finds it here. Chiavari and Lavagna have schools, trains and markets; the hinterland has silence and olive groves. It is the kind of area where it pays to be guided in the house hunt, because every valley has its own microclimate and character.
Lake Como has a quieter shore than Clooney's
Villas mirror themselves in the water, gardens slope down to the shore, ferries cut a white wake across the lake. This is the Lake Como that John Legend and Chrissy Teigen chose to marry on in September 2013, at Villa Pizzo in Cernobbio, where they had spent one of their first holidays. Stevie Wonder sang for the couple, and Legend performed ‘All of Me’ for his bride.
The Como branch, around Cernobbio and Laglio where George Clooney also has a home, is the lake’s most glamorous and expensive face. But the Lario has three branches, and the other two hold the same scenery with a wholly different mood. The Lecco branch, on the eastern shore, runs past Varenna — a village of flowered staircases and waterside villas — Bellano and the busy town of Lecco.
To the north, the Upper Lake around Gravedona, Domaso and Colico is the realm of the wind: sailors and kitesurfers feel at home here, and the lake grows wide and luminous. Behind rise the Valsassina and the valleys of the Lecco area, full of mountain villages and cheeses.
These are places where Lake Como remains the protagonist, yet putting down roots is a real prospect. Anyone imagining a life on the water should look east and north, where the same view simply breathes more.
Beyond Borgo Egnazia begins the Itria Valley
Whitewashed walls, ancient olive trees, the sea glinting beyond the trulli: Puglia has a light that stays with you. On this stretch of coast, at Borgo Egnazia — the resort in Savelletri di Fasano built to look like a white-stone village — Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel married in October 2012 before a hundred guests, with a song the groom wrote and sang for his bride.
A few miles from the sea at Fasano the countryside rises toward the Itria Valley (Valle d’Itria), one of Italy’s most recognisable corners. This is the land of trulli and masserie (cone-roofed houses and fortified farmhouses), of dry-stone walls and centuries-old olive groves. Ostuni, the White City, glows on its hill; Cisternino and Locorotondo are among the region’s most admired towns.
A little further, Martina Franca adds the baroque of its palaces and Alberobello lines up the trulli that UNESCO protects as a World Heritage site. On the coast, Polignano a Mare and Monopoli complete the picture with their coves above the Adriatic.
The Itria Valley is also one of the areas where the dream of a home in Italy remains most attainable: trulli and masserie waiting to be restored reward anyone willing to bring them back to life — and to search for the right property with a patient eye.
Bocelli's Tuscany faces the sea, not the Chianti
Above Livorno, where the pines open onto the sea, the Montenero Sanctuary has watched over the coast for centuries. It is here that Andrea Bocelli married Veronica Berti in March 2014, in an intimate ceremony deeply tied to his homeland. The tenor, born in Lajatico in the Pisan hinterland, chose for his vows a Tuscany different from the Chianti postcards: the one that faces the water.
When people think of Tuscany they picture Florence, Siena and the wine hills. Yet there is a Tuscany that looks out to sea — the Etruscan Coast (Costa degli Etruschi), from Livorno to Piombino. Castiglioncello, beloved of the Macchiaioli painters and of Italian cinema, keeps an old-world seaside charm among pines and red cliffs.
Further south, Bolgheri is the name that makes wine lovers dream: the cypress avenue sung by the poet Giosuè Carducci leads to a tiny village ringed by the vineyards of Sassicaia. Castagneto Carducci, San Vincenzo and the inland Cecina valley add medieval villages, spas and an unspoilt countryside.
This is the Tuscany of the sea and the lesser hills, less travelled than Florence but just as intense. For house hunters, the Cecina valley and villages such as Suvereto offer stone, silence and interesting prospects, a step from the beaches.
Among Chastain's Venetian villas, where Prosecco becomes landscape
A country villa among the vineyards, with its own cellar and its own family Prosecco. At Villa Tiepolo Passi, in Carbonera just outside Treviso, the Oscar-winning actress Jessica Chastain married Italian entrepreneur Gian Luca Passi de Preposulo in June 2017. The estate has belonged to the groom’s family for generations: a wedding that is also a story of Italian roots rediscovered, with Emily Blunt and Anne Hathaway among the guests.
Treviso is a city of water and arcades, crossed by the Sile and gathered within its walls. But it is the surrounding landscape that takes your breath away. To the north stretch the Prosecco hills of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene, named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2019 for their steep, hand-drawn rows of vines.
Between one hill and the next appears Asolo, the ‘city of a hundred horizons’ beloved of actress Eleonora Duse. Nearby, Possagno holds the plaster casts of the sculptor Antonio Canova, and everywhere stand Venetian villas among the vines. It is an orderly, cultured countryside of wine cellars and quiet.
To live here is to wake among the rows of vines, with Venice little more than an hour away. The houses on the Prosecco hills and in the villages of the Treviso countryside speak to anyone seeking an elegant but discreet Italy, far from the crowds.
At Frascati, Rome stays within sight
A sixteenth-century villa overlooking the Roman countryside, with the dome of St Peter’s drawing the horizon. At Villa Aldobrandini, in Frascati, Lady Kitty Spencer — niece of Princess Diana — married entrepreneur Michael Lewis in July 2021: three days of celebrations and five Dolce&Gabbana gowns, for a wedding of aristocratic flavour at the gates of the capital.
Frascati is the heart of the Castelli Romani, the volcanic hills that have always been the Romans’ refuge from the city heat. It is a land of white wine, of patrician villas and of views that open suddenly onto Rome. And it lies just minutes from the capital, served by frequent trains.
All around, each town has its own soul. Castel Gandolfo mirrors itself in Lake Albano and hosts the papal residences; Ariccia is fragrant with porchetta and guards Bernini’s Palazzo Chigi; tiny Nemi watches over its lake and its wild strawberries. Grottaferrata has its ancient abbey, Marino its wine cellars.
For those who want Rome close but a slower life, the Castelli Romani are a natural answer. You live among the vineyards and reach the centre of the capital in half an hour: a balance few places in the world can offer.
The Gallura that begins where the Costa Smeralda ends
Emerald water, granite rocks smoothed by the wind, coves that look hand-drawn. The Costa Smeralda is Sardinia’s most famous coastline, and at the Hotel Cala di Volpe the actress Rebel Wilson married Ramona Agruma in September 2024, in an intimate ceremony before sixty guests, facing the emerald water that has drawn the international jet set for sixty years.
The Costa Smeralda of Porto Cervo and Porto Rotondo is a world apart. But it is only one stretch of Gallura, the north-eastern Sardinian region of wind-carved granite, cork oaks and transparent sea. A few miles inland lies San Pantaleo, a village of artists and pink granite with its Thursday market.
Widening the view, Gallura offers Olbia with its gulf, San Teodoro and Budoni on the eastern coast, and to the north Santa Teresa Gallura facing Corsica, with the Maddalena archipelago a breath away. Inland, towns like Aggius and Tempio Pausania tell of a Sardinia of stone, among Vermentino cellars and old stazzi (Gallura farmhouses).
Here the cover-shoot sea coexists with places where life costs far less than Porto Cervo. For anyone looking at Sardinia as an investment too, the stazzi to restore and the inland properties of Gallura are ground worth watching closely.
Across from Capri, the peninsula you can live in all year
Sea stacks, boats at sunset, the island lighting up over the dark water. This is the Capri that Heidi Klum and Tom Kaulitz, guitarist of Tokio Hotel, chose for their wedding party in August 2019, aboard the yacht Christina O — once owned by Aristotle Onassis — moored off the island.
Capri is a myth, and myths come at a price. Across from the island, though, stretches the Sorrento Peninsula, which looks onto the same gulf from the mainland. Sorrento, with its citrus groves above the sea, is its best-known town; but it is going down toward Massa Lubrense and Sant’Agata sui Due Golfi that the landscape turns intimate.
From Sant’Agata, on clear days, the eye takes in both the Gulf of Naples and the Gulf of Salerno. Marina del Cantone and Nerano, at the foot of the Lattari mountains, keep their coves and their seafood cooking. And further south begins the Cilento, more secret still: Castellabate, Acciaroli — among the longest-lived towns in the world — and Palinuro with its caves.
These are places on the same sea as Capri, but lived in all year round, with real towns, schools and shops. For anyone who dreams of the gulf but wants to put down a home, the Sorrento Peninsula and the Cilento are the version you can live every day.
Bagheria, Palermo and the Sicilian villas waiting to be woken
Baroque villas among the citrus groves, the sea glinting beyond Palermo, the dense light of the South. It is in this Sicily that, in June 2026, Dua Lipa and the actor Callum Turner are expected to marry: according to the Italian press the wedding is planned for 5–7 June, with the central moments at Villa Valguarnera in Bagheria and other events between Palermo and its historic residences.
Bagheria, on the edge of Palermo, is the ‘city of villas’: in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Palermo aristocracy built their summer residences here, and Villa Palagonia with its stone monsters is the symbol. It is also the town of painter Renato Guttuso and of Giuseppe Tornatore’s films. And, unlike the other destinations on this map, it is a town where living costs little: here the dream already has an affordable address.
Minutes away lies Palermo, with its Arab-Norman centre recognised by UNESCO, the Ballarò and Vucciria markets, the sea at Mondello. Along the coast, Cefalù lines up its houses beneath a Norman cathedral. And behind rise the Madonie mountains, with towns such as Castelbuono, Petralia Soprana and Gangi, winner of the ‘Borgo dei Borghi’ contest in 2014.
Sicily is perhaps where the gap between the glamour of the wedding and the affordability of everyday life is widest. Historic villas and palazzi in the old centres wait for anyone willing to restore them, often at prices unthinkable elsewhere: a real prospect for those who look at Italy as an investment as well as a home.
A map to dream by — and to choose by
| Couple | Postcard spot | Nearby areas to discover | The spirit of the place |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jeff Bezos & Lauren Sánchez | Venice | Riviera del Brenta, Venetian mainland | Villas on the water, slow rhythm |
| Kourtney Kardashian & Travis Barker | Portofino | Gulf of Tigullio, Fontanabuona valley | The Ligurian sea year-round |
| John Legend & Chrissy Teigen | Lake Como | Lecco branch, Upper Lake, Valsassina | The lake that breathes |
| Justin Timberlake & Jessica Biel | Puglia (Fasano) | Itria Valley, Polignano coast | White stone and olive trees |
| Andrea Bocelli & Veronica Berti | Livorno | Etruscan Coast, Cecina valley | The Tuscany that faces the sea |
| Jessica Chastain & G. L. Passi de Preposulo | Treviso | Prosecco hills, Asolo | Vineyards and Venetian villas |
| Lady Kitty Spencer & Michael Lewis | Frascati | Castelli Romani | Rome within sight |
| Rebel Wilson & Ramona Agruma | Costa Smeralda | Gallura, San Pantaleo, inland | Granite, wind and sea |
| Heidi Klum & Tom Kaulitz | Capri | Sorrento Peninsula, Cilento | The same gulf, lived in |
| Dua Lipa & Callum Turner | Bagheria / Palermo | Cefalù, Madonie, historic villas | A Sicily waiting to wake |
The dream often has the address next door
A couple — with Ligurian roots — whom Impatria worked with had been living far away, and for years they had dreamed of Portofino. When they decided to look for a home in Italy, they understood that Portofino would only ever be a Sunday outing. Instead they chose the Tigullio hinterland: a stone house with a vegetable garden, the Saturday market, the train into Genoa, the sea in September once the tourists have gone.
They did not give up the dream. They simply brought it into focus. It is what happens to many who start from the postcard and then, looking just beyond it, find the right place. Moving to a new country means relearning the small daily gestures too — and doing so in a place you love makes everything lighter.
The geography of celebrity weddings is, in the end, a geography of possibility. It shows where Italy is most beautiful, and leaves us the task of looking a little further, to where that beauty becomes home. You do not need to be a celebrity to wake up facing the sea off Capri or among the Prosecco hills. You need to know where to look, and the patience to do it well.
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