Some couples have taken having a Catholic wedding to the next level, deciding to marry in the very heart of the Church: the Vatican.

The unconventional choice, it turns out, is not uncommon — more than 100 Italian and foreign couples wed within the walls of the city state in 2024. 

But for those who waded through language barriers and paperwork, receiving the sacrament with such a beautiful and meaningful backdrop was worth the logistical effort.

“It was a dream come true,” according to Xavier Kerrand and Gloria Alvizo, a French-Mexican couple who were married in 2022 in St. Peter’s Basilica. 

 

An Amazing Opportunity

The Vatican allows Catholic marriages to take place in the Chapel of the Choir in St. Peter’s Basilica and in the small city state’s seven other churches.

People from all over the world ask to celebrate their wedding in St. Peter’s Basilica, explained Father Agnello Stoia. 

“We try to satisfy the wishes of as many people as possible,” Father Stoia, the pastor of the basilica, said. “For us, it’s an important sign of welcome.” 

While 95 couples married in St. Peter’s Basilica in 2024, weddings in the Renaissance basilica are halted during the Jubilee Year 2025 due to scheduling challenges. 

Father Stoia also added an important warning to couples hoping to have their own Vatican nuptials not to believe any websites claiming to offer Vatican wedding planning services, all while charging “an arm and a leg.” Getting married in St. Peter’s Basilica costs nothing except a free-will donation, he underlined, and the pastoral office, which he has headed for three years, is trying to also make the process for getting married in the world’s largest church a little easier.

Despite this assurance, Kerrand and Alvizo described the process of planning a wedding inside the Vatican as “neither difficult nor easy.”

The couple, who married in the Chapel of the Choir in 2022, said it was at least an eight-month process to set the date and to collect and submit the requested documents. They also met with the pastor and explained why they wanted to get married at the Vatican.

While they now live with their 1-year-old daughter in Kerrand’s home country of France, having their wedding at the Vatican “was a way to meet in the middle,” they said, since Alvizo and her family are from Mexico. It was also significant because the two met in Rome.

“The day of the wedding, I was left speechless,” Kerrand said, “because it was really a dream that had become reality.”

Overcoming Challenges

Steven and Amy Puglia, who live in North Carolina with their four children, ages 3 to 10, also married in the Chapel of the Choir, which takes its name from the dark wooden choir stalls where, in the past, the canons of the basilica would sit to pray the Liturgy of the Hours.

Steven recalled waiting for his bride at the chapel’s altar, under a mosaic of the Immaculate Conception, on the day of their wedding, Oct. 13, 2012. 

“It was a surreal sight looking on from the altar,” he recalled. “They sectioned off a large semi-circle with guards, and Amy stood in the middle surrounded by fascinated onlookers.”

The couple decided to have their wedding in St. Peter’s Basilica after being denied by a church in the U.S. because they were not parishioners. They did not yet have roots in another parish as a couple, and when Steven’s sister, who lives in Rome, suggested the Vatican, it felt like an amazing opportunity.

“The time difference, language barrier, and, let’s just say, different priorities made working with the Vatican very challenging,” Steven said. But with help from his sister and brother-in-law on the ground in Rome, everything was set to go forward — until an unexpected situation almost threatened to call the whole thing off.

“A few months in, we were notified by the Vatican that they were going to begin a renovation to the Chapel of the Choir beginning Oct. 15, and they were going to cancel our wedding,” Steven said. “We had already lined up travel and accommodation plans not only for us but for our 50 guests. So, as you can imagine, this was quite a surprise.”

At the time, the basilica only allowed weddings on Mondays and Wednesdays, but Steven’s brother-in-law convinced the pastor to let them move the wedding Mass to the Saturday before; in the end, they got hitched without a hitch.

 

To the Altar

Steven’s sister Ashley Noronha and her husband John were also an integral part of another Vatican wedding, more than 10 years later.

Jami and Mike Johnson credit Providence for putting them in contact with the Noronhas, who have lived in Rome since 2008 and were “pivotal” in creating communication chains for the organization of the Johnsons’ Vatican wedding.

The Johnsons said they fell in love quickly when they met, and their relationship ended up leading Jami to convert to Catholicism. Mike is a cradle Catholic.

When they decided to get married, the couple realized they wanted to make their wedding a deeper “journey of religious devotion.”

“We wanted to take a pilgrimage” to Rome, Mike explained. “And we wanted to make the sacrament the most sacred, the most beautiful, and the most meaningful that we possibly could.”

The two, who now live on a farm in Maine, chose the Pontifical Parish of St. Anne in the Vatican, a small 16th-century church open to the public, for a very specific reason: their devotion to Sts. Anne and Joachim, who, before the conception of Mary, were grieved by their childlessness.

Mike said being in Rome for their wedding, visiting churches and basilicas, and climbing the Holy Stairs, was “transformational” and “overwhelming emotionally” for both of them.

Only the Johnsons’ priest traveled with them to Italy. 

The guests at their wedding were Catholics living in Rome, invited through John and Ashley Noronha, who were also the bride and groom’s witnesses. 

On the day of the wedding, “we felt a very deep sense of calm and peace ... wash over us.” 

Mike said, “You felt the love of Jesus.” 

 

‘Peace and Tranquility’

Serena Russo and Edoardo Allegra also appreciated the sense of peace found inside the Vatican, despite the bustle of the busy Roman streets nearby.

The Italian couple married in St. Stephen of the Abyssinians Church, which is in the Vatican Gardens in the shadow of St. Peter’s Basilica. Possibly dating from as early as the fifth century, it is the oldest surviving church inside Vatican City.

Russo and Allegra liked the church’s simple Roman architecture and columns for their July 6, 2024, wedding. Allegra grew up in Rome and had the chance to visit the Vatican many times since childhood, so he was already familiar with the church.

Allegra said the sacred edifice helped them to begin their lives together in holy matrimony. “[Inside the Vatican] there is peace and tranquility.”

Ashley Noronha, who has helped six couples plan their weddings at the Vatican and in other Roman churches, said that “it’s an amazing gift to be married in Rome” because it “weaves together the beauty of marriage, with the beauty of the Church, with the beauty of our faith.” 

She said, “Marriage is supported by family, witnesses and friends, and being married in Rome means entering the sacrament in the holy mystical presence of the community of saints who have a history and connection to these sacred and historic basilicas.”

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