Civil ceremonies on the roof of Positano's town hall

This isn't a palazzo, and it doesn't pretend to be. The Comune di Positano is a simple whitewashed block with the town's crest painted on the wall. It shares the building with the Carabinieri, and its roof is the highlight. Up here you get terracotta tiles edged with blue-and-yellow majolica and a white wrought-iron railing curling along the edge. A pale yellow column stands at one corner. The registrar's table is iron too, its top painted with the village itself. Add a rose arch and a few urns of white hydrangea, and it becomes a quietly elegant ceremony location.

Positano stacks its pastel houses down a cliff to two beaches. The town hall sits above all of it, at the Chiesa Nuova bend of the coast road. Fornillo's cove is directly below. The main beach and the majolica dome of Santa Maria Assunta are off to the east. Behind you rise the Lattari mountains, with Montepertuso and Nocelle clinging to them. Positano was a fishing village until John Steinbeck wrote it up in 1953. The whole coast has been a UNESCO site since 1997. From up here the view takes in yachts at anchor and Torre Trasita on its rock.

The Path of the Gods starts in Nocelle, five kilometers up the hill, and ends with the coast laid out below you. Amalfi and its cathedral are a short drive east, Ravello a little further up, Sorrento the same distance west. Pompeii is about an hour away for a day among the ruins. Boats run from the pier below to Capri and the Li Galli islets, and a private boat is an easy add-on. If you'd like a rehearsal dinner or a second celebration elsewhere on this coast, our Italian wedding locations include Ravello and Sorrento.

Getting here is easier than Positano's reputation suggests. The town hall sits on the road rather than down a staircase. The SITA coast bus stops at Chiesa Nuova by the door, and a taxi from the beach takes a few minutes up the hill. Naples airport is about 60 kilometers away, and Salerno's smaller airport about the same. Rome means a train and then a drive. Ferries from the pier below link Positano with Sorrento, Amalfi, Capri, Naples and Salerno. We book the transfers, so you only have to be dressed and on the terrace in time.

Positano is a town of stairs, and the terrace keeps to local custom. A flight of steps leads up from the road to the roof. The rest of the village is steeper still, with lanes that turn into staircases without warning. Nobody publishes a step-free route or a lift for the terrace. Tell us early if someone in your party needs one, and we'll ask the Comune directly. Comfortable shoes for the walk down afterward are a must.

The town hall has no rooms, which keeps things simple: you sleep where you like and arrive dressed. Hotels and guesthouses sit within a few minutes' walk in the upper village, and plenty more down toward the beaches. Our couples usually get ready at their hotel. Michelle & John still rave about the one Eleonora found them. Book early for June to September, when the whole coast fills.

The legal ceremony is short and very Italian. The mayor or a registrar, sash across the chest, reads three articles of the civil code in Italian. Your interpreter translates, and you answer. You need two adult witnesses with ID, and the interpreter can't be one of them. Allow fifteen to twenty minutes, plus time for your own vows, a reading or a musician, all of which the Comune allows. Niamh & Adrian did exactly this for a legal wedding for two in September. Before the day comes the paperwork: a Nulla Osta with apostille, a sworn declaration at the town hall, and for some nationalities an Atto Notorio. Eleonora, our wedding planner in Italy, books your slot with the Comune's wedding office and assists with every form.

The terrace is one open rectangle of tiles with the sea on two sides. It takes a few rows of white chairs and an aisle runner. There's no shade on it, so the light decides the mood. At noon the tiles throw the sun back up at you. From five or six on a summer evening the mountain shades the village and the sky stays blue. That's the hour Hayley & Joe chose, with white roses and orchids on a square arch at the railing. In spring, wisteria and bougainvillea spill over the lanes around it.

Every walk from this terrace is a photo. The lanes below hang ceramics and lemon-print linens outside the shops, and a stairway of them makes a fine aisle for two. Down at the main beach, rows of blue-and-white striped umbrellas frame the whole village behind you. Fornillo is quieter, a cliff-backed cove with darker sand. From the roof itself you can shoot the yachts, the tower and the dome. A boat out to Li Galli adds the coast seen from the water.

Nothing is cooked on the roof. Your hour there is for the ceremony, the signatures and a few photos, and then Positano takes over. Restaurant terraces wait all the way down the hill. Hayley & Joe had dinner at a hotel restaurant on the same road, just the two of them and a chocolate mud cake. A dinner reservation sits outside our Italy wedding packages, but Eleonora will point you to the right terrace for your party.

The Positano registry office performs civil unions as well as marriages. Same-sex couples can make it legal on this roof too. A civil ceremony is secular by design, which leaves room for readings from any tradition or none. Our interpreter translates whatever you choose to say.

The terrace is open to the sky, so the Comune keeps an indoor room ready. It's a salon lined with majolica and hung with paintings, with space for around fifty. In practice it's rarely needed. Ceremonies run all year, and our couples have married here from April to September. Summer middays are hot on the tiles, so a late slot is kinder to everyone.

This is a working town hall. You share the building with the municipal offices and the Carabinieri, and the terrace is visible from the path. During your slot the roof is yours, and the next couple waits their turn. If you'd rather be unseen, this isn't that venue. If you like a village looking on while you say yes, it's exactly that.