FAQs - Frequently Asked Questions

More variety than any other European destination, and the regional differences are real rather than cosmetic.

Beach clubs along the Costa del Sol and the islands, for a relaxed coastal day where the light does the work. Fincas and cortijos, traditional Andalusian farmhouses built around courtyards, with thick walls that stay cool in August. Haciendas, their grander cousins, often former olive oil estates. Masias in Catalonia, sixteenth and seventeenth-century farmhouses with barns that convert beautifully. Private villas everywhere, giving you exclusive use and usually rooms for your closest guests. Castles and historic estates for something more formal. Hotels and golf resorts when you'd rather have everything under one contract. And bodegas and vineyards, particularly in the Penedès and around Ronda.

Browse the full range across our wedding venues in Spain, or start with where in Spain if you haven't settled on a region.

It depends on your guest list more than your Pinterest board.

Marbella has the widest choice and the highest prices. Estepona offers the same coast, quieter and cheaper. Sotogrande is the private, gated end, built around golf and polo. Málaga suits a city wedding where guests walk everywhere. Ronda is ninety minutes inland and worth every one. Ibiza and Mallorca hold a wedding together because everyone is on the same island for three days. Barcelona works best as the base, with the masies of El Vallès and the Penedès within an hour.

The full picture is on our Costa del Sol and Andalucía pages.

Anything from twenty to five hundred. The number to ask for is the seated capacity rather than the headline figure, which is often standing, and the covered capacity separately, because that's usually far lower than the outdoor one.

At a villa or an exclusive-use finca, yes. At a hotel or resort, not necessarily unless you've booked exclusive use, and resorts run other business alongside weddings. Ask what else is booked that day and where it will be. Any decent venue answers directly.

Villas and dry-hire fincas usually allow it, subject to an approval process covering insurance, kitchen standards and staffing, sometimes with a kitchen hire fee. Hotels and resorts almost always require in-house catering and often have preferred lists for photography and entertainment.

If there's someone you already want, establish this before you fall for a venue. It's one of the more common reasons couples end up choosing between the two.

Venue by venue, and it's the first thing to ask. Anywhere near housing, which includes most beach clubs and coastal hotels, generally stops outdoor music between midnight and 1am. Inland estates are far more relaxed and some have no fixed end time.

Treat "no curfew" on a website with caution. Some venues mean they hold the right licence; others mean nobody has complained yet. Get the actual position written into the contract.

You tell us your date, guest numbers, budget and the sort of day you're picturing. We shortlist venues that genuinely fit, contact them in Spanish to confirm availability and terms, and come back with an honest assessment of each, including the drawbacks.

We then arrange tours, in person or by video call, and go with you where we can. Full details are on our venue sourcing and tours page.

Yes, and it's one of the most common things we're asked. We'll contact the venue directly, confirm availability for your dates, and explain exactly what's needed to hold it, including deposit terms and what the quote does and doesn't include. Availability checks start from €75.

From €180. We take no commission from any venue, which means a recommendation costs us nothing either way and we're negotiating on your side of the table.

Yes, and most couples planning from abroad have us do exactly that. We visit, photograph, film, and report back honestly on what the website doesn't show. Then you come out once to see a shortlist of two or three rather than spending a week looking at places that were never going to work.

Four things, and they separate venues that will work from venues that photograph well.

The real seated capacity, not the standing figure. What time the music has to stop and who enforces it. Whether outside suppliers are permitted. And how many people the wet weather space genuinely holds, since a venue seating 150 in the garden might shelter 40.

Beyond those, the practical detail: where the sun sits at six in the evening, whether a coach can turn on the access road, whether the venue holds its own alcohol licence, and whether the quote includes IVA at 21%.

For a typical wedding: catering, drinks and bar staff, a celebrant, photography and often videography, flowers and styling, furniture and tableware hire, music for the ceremony and a DJ or band for the evening, hair and make-up, and transport for guests.

We source and manage all of it. See vendor sourcing and management for how it works, or browse specific services: catering and private chefs, photography and videography, mobile bars, DJs, florists and content creators.

No. We take no commission from any supplier or venue. What you get is our honest view of who's reliable, and if we think someone isn't right for your day we'll say so.

You can, and some couples do. The difficulty isn't finding them, it's judging them from a website in another country. Anyone can produce twenty photographers on the Costa del Sol. Knowing which three turn up when they say they will, handle a change of plan well, and are worth the extra money is a different thing, and it's mostly what we're useful for.

Yes. Plenty of couples bring a photographer from home and use us for everything else, or handle the flowers themselves and leave us the rest. We'll work around whatever you've already booked.

€100 for the first two suppliers and €25 for each after, so five vendors is €175 and ten is €300. No commission, no percentage of your budget.

Not necessarily, and we'd rather tell you honestly than sell you something you don't need.

If you've booked an all-inclusive hotel with its own coordinator and want a straightforward day, you may well manage. If you're using a dry-hire villa or finca, you're building an event from nothing, in another country, in a language you probably don't speak, and there's a great deal more to hold together.

Our wedding planning services page sets out the options.

A venue coordinator works for the venue and manages what happens inside it on the day. A planner works for you, across everything: shortlisting venues, building the budget, sourcing and booking suppliers, reading contracts, holding the timeline, and running the day itself. They're complementary rather than interchangeable.

Yes, and most of our couples do. Venue tours work by video call, we visit on your behalf and report back, and most couples come out once to see a final shortlist. What we wouldn't advise is booking anything sight unseen on the strength of photographs, because capacity, noise limits and wet weather space are the things websites never show accurately.

Full planning and partial planning are priced separately, with hourly options for couples who want help at specific points rather than throughout. Current rates are on the wedding planning page, and our wedding packages bundle planning with catering, styling and suppliers if you'd rather buy the outcome than manage the process.

Twelve to eighteen months for a peak-season Saturday, since the best venues take those dates first. Six to nine months is workable if you're flexible on the day of the week or happy with May, June or September rather than high summer. Book the venue first and build everything else around the date.

Runs your wedding so you don't have to.

We're on site from set-up, briefing suppliers as they arrive, holding the running order, managing the transitions between ceremony, drinks, dinner and dancing, and dealing with whatever goes wrong before it reaches you. Something always goes wrong. The measure of a good day is that the couple never hears about it.

See on-day coordination for what's included.

Yes, and it's a popular option. You keep full control of the planning and hand over the execution. We'll meet you in the final weeks to learn your plans in detail, contact every supplier to confirm timings, build a schedule everyone works from, and run it on the day.

Usually four to six weeks out, which is when supplier confirmations and timeline building need to happen. Earlier if the wedding is complex or you'd rather stop chasing sooner.

Often, yes. A venue coordinator manages the venue's part: the room, the staff, the service. They aren't responsible for your florist arriving late, your photographer's shot list, or the fact that the coaches are due back at midnight. Someone needs to hold the whole day rather than one part of it.

Realistically, no, and this is the point most couples don't discover until they're deep into planning.

A civil marriage in Spain runs through the Registro Civil, and the registry that handles your case is the one covering the municipality where at least one of you is registered on the local padrón. If neither of you lives in Spain, there generally isn't a registry with jurisdiction over your marriage.

This changes very little about your actual wedding, and we'd rather explain it now than have you find out later.

Three, and most couples choose the first.

A symbolic ceremony in Spain, legally married at home. You complete the legal formality before travelling, usually a ten-minute registry appointment with two witnesses, then hold the wedding you've been planning here. Total freedom over venue, timing, language and format, and no Spanish paperwork at all.

Gibraltar. No residency requirement, English as the official language, UK documents accepted as they are, and you can typically marry within days of arriving. Sotogrande is twenty minutes away and Marbella about an hour. More on our weddings in Gibraltar page.

A Catholic ceremony. Legally recognised in Spain without the residency problem, but both of you generally need to be baptised and confirmed Catholics, and your home parish must complete a pre-nuptial enquiry forwarded to the Spanish diocese. Allow a year.

No, and that's precisely the point. It carries no legal weight, which is why the legal side happens separately. What it gives you in exchange is complete freedom: any venue, any time of day, any language, anyone officiating, no registry availability dictating your date.

Nobody at your wedding can tell the difference. You exchange vows, you have a celebrant, your guests watch.

Only relevant if one of you is resident. You open the expediente matrimonial at the registry covering your address, both attend, and provide:

• Valid passports for both partners
• Recently issued full birth certificates
• Proof of civil status, such as a certificate of no impediment
• Decree absolute or death certificate if either has been married before
• The resident partner's certificado de empadronamiento
• Two witnesses attending on the day

Foreign documents need translation by a traductor jurado and an apostille. Requirements vary between registries, so confirm the exact list with yours before paying for translations.

Plan for four to six months rather than the six weeks the formal steps suggest. Getting the initial appointment can take weeks, gathering and apostilling documents from abroad takes weeks more, and the registry's own review adds to it. Don't book a venue date until the authorisation is issued.

For a symbolic ceremony, yes, and in two languages if your families need it. There's an established network of professional celebrants here working in English and most northern European languages.

A legal civil marriage at the registry is conducted in Spanish by a registrar, and if neither of you speaks Spanish an official interpreter is generally required.

This is general guidance rather than legal advice. Requirements vary by municipality and change. Confirm your position with the relevant registry or a Spanish gestor before committing to a date.

For 80 to 100 guests, most weddings land between €25,000 and €40,000 all in, once venue, catering, drinks, flowers, styling, music, photography and staffing are included.

Venue hire alone runs from around €2,000 for a smaller inland property to €20,000 or more for a luxury estate on a peak-season Saturday. Catering is the largest line after the venue, typically €75 to €150 per person depending on menu and drinks.

Region shifts this considerably. Marbella and Sotogrande sit at the top, Estepona and Fuengirola noticeably below, and inland lower again for comparable quality.

Not asking whether quotes include IVA at 21%. Some venues quote inclusive, some exclusive, and nobody volunteers which. On a €10,000 venue fee that's €2,100, and it means two quotes you thought were comparable aren't.

Not necessarily, and this catches people out.

Dry hire means renting the space alone. Catering, staff, furniture, glassware, bar and sometimes the kitchen come separately. A villa at €6,000 can finish higher than a hotel at €9,000 once everything's added. What dry hire buys you is complete control over who delivers your day, which is worth a lot to some couples and nothing to others.

Compare the total operational cost, not the rental headline.

Marry midweek, where venues have the most room to negotiate. Go inland, where prices drop noticeably twenty minutes from the coast. Avoid July and August. And consider shoulder season, particularly early October, when the weather still holds.

Our wedding packages are another route, bundling the main elements at a fixed price.

Málaga is the best-connected airport in southern Spain, with direct flights from most UK cities and across Europe, and nowhere on the Costa del Sol is more than an hour from it. Gibraltar serves the western end. Palma, Ibiza and Barcelona are all well connected.

For a guest list arriving from several countries, that accessibility usually matters more than the setting.

Not for the wedding day, and we'd recommend coaches regardless. Taxis get scarce late at night, particularly inland, and nobody should be driving after a wedding. For the rest of the trip a hire car is useful, though Fuengirola and Benalmádena are on the train line from Málaga airport, so guests can arrive without one.

Spain is genuinely good at this. High chairs, children's menus and a kids' table are standard, children stay up far later than British parents expect, and no venue will mind a toddler on the dance floor at eleven. Professional childcare can be arranged through established local agencies if you'd rather parents had the evening to themselves.

Depends where you marry, which is worth factoring in. A city base like Málaga or Barcelona fills itself. Coastal towns give you beaches, marinas and golf. Rural venues are beautiful and guests will need somewhere to be based rather than stranded.

A welcome dinner the night before and a lunch the day after cost relatively little and change the shape of the whole weekend.

A Marbella-based team who have helped more than 120 couples find and book venues since 2019. You can meet the team and read what couples have said on our testimonials page.

No. Not from venues, not from suppliers. When we tell you a venue is wrong for your numbers or your budget, that's simply what we think.

The Costa del Sol and wider Andalucía are home ground, and we work across the Balearics, the Canaries, Catalonia, Valencia, Madrid and Gibraltar. The full picture is on our Spanish wedding locations page.

Get in touch with your rough date, guest numbers and the sort of day you're picturing. We'll come back within 24 hours.