Getting married in Nafplio
Greece’s first capital: a Venetian and neoclassical old town on a peninsula in the Argolic Gulf, under the Palamidi fortress and facing the island castle of the Bourtzi.
Nafplio was the seat of the young Greek state from the 1820s until 1834. Ioannis Kapodistrias, its first governor, was shot at the door of the church of Agios Spyridon on 27 September 1831 by the old calendar, and King Otto landed here in January 1833. Above the town, 216 m up, the Palamidi is a fortress the Venetians built in 1711–1714; the Bourtzi, a castle on an islet in the harbour, dates from the 1470s. On Syntagma Square, the Vouleftiko, Greece’s first parliament, is a former mosque, and in the suburb of Pronoia the Bavarian Lion, carved into the rock in 1840–41, remembers Otto’s soldiers who died of typhus.
Couples marry here before the mayor or a deputy mayor, or in one of the old town’s churches, then walk through the old town to the harbour as the sun goes down over the gulf beyond the Bourtzi. The fortresses are daytime places — the Palamidi closes at 20:00 even in summer — and the town is a favourite weekend escape from Athens, two hours away: a weekday wedding is a quieter one.
Photographers
Wedding photographers in Nafplio
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Ceremonies
Where couples marry in Nafplio
The civil wedding
Nafplio’s Registry and Civil Weddings Department is at 34 Vasileos Konstantinou Street. The mayor marries couples, and so, under a decision of October 2026, do the deputy mayors. A council decision of 2017 set the municipal fee: higher for couples who do not live in the municipality, and higher again for a wedding outside the town hall, in another municipal building the town designates. The town’s website turns away automated visitors, so its days and hours could not be checked: ask the department.
Agios Georgios, the cathedral
The cathedral of the Metropolis of Argolida, one of six Orthodox parishes in the town, which belongs to the Church of Greece. Its rules are the national ones: one of you Orthodox, both baptised Christians, the bishop’s licence, and no weddings in Lent — from 15 March to 1 May in 2027 — or from 1 to 15 August. The Metropolis office, at 31 Vasileos Konstantinou, is open on weekday mornings.
Agios Spyridon
A small church built in 1702, according to its founders’ inscription, where Kapodistrias was killed in 1831. It is not a parish of its own: it belongs to the parish of Agios Georgios, so a wedding there is arranged through the cathedral’s priests.
The Catholic church of the Transfiguration
Nafplio’s Catholic parish, founded in 1840, worships in a former mosque on Fotomara Street, under the Catholic Archdiocese of Athens. It publishes no rules for couples from abroad: write to the parish well ahead.
Portraits
Where to take your portraits
The Palamidi, by day
The walls and bastions of the fortress, with the whole town and the gulf below. In 2026 it opened 08:00–20:00 from May to August, then closed earlier through the autumn — 19:30 in early September, 18:00 by late October — and 08:30–15:30 in winter, last entry 20 minutes before closing. The stairs climb from Arvanitia — “the legendary 999 steps” on the official ticket site, 857 by Greek Wikipedia’s count — about an hour on foot from Syntagma Square; a road goes up too.
The Bourtzi
A small boat crosses from the harbour to the islet castle, for a fee. In 2026 it was open 09:00–21:00 in July and August, to 20:00 in September and on June weekends, shorter in spring and autumn. From the quay, it is the classic foreground for sunset over the gulf: on 15 June 2027 the sun sets in Nafplio at about 20:52 and golden hour runs from 20:14 to 21:12; on 15 September, from 19:04 to 19:54.
Syntagma Square and the old town
The square with the Vouleftiko, and around it lanes of neoclassical houses climbing towards Akronafplia. Early morning is the time, before the square fills. Commercial filming on the town’s squares needs a council decision; a couple’s portraits are a different, smaller thing, but ask if you plan a large set-up.
Arvanitia and the path to Karathona
On the south side of the Akronafplia headland, a path runs around the rocks above the water from Arvanitia, about a kilometre, and another continues some 2 km along the coast to Karathona beach — the sea on one side, the rock on the other.
Through the year
When to marry in Nafplio
May, June, September and October are the months to aim for. The nearest official station with published averages, the National Observatory of Athens’ station at Argos, 10 km inland (2012–2019, not a 30-year normal), gives average highs of 27.0 °C in May, 31.6 °C in June, 34.6 °C in July, 34.9 °C in August, 30.2 °C in September and 24.7 °C in October; July and August are nearly dry, and September brings the first rain. Nafplio, on the sea, is likely a little milder. The calendar matters too: the Nafplio Festival fills the town for a week each July (11–18 July in 2026), the Athens & Epidaurus Festival plays the ancient theatre at Epidaurus on summer weekends (20 June to 29 August in 2026), and state sites such as the Palamidi are free — and busier — on 6 March, 18 April, 18 May, the last weekend of September and 28 October.
The Peloponnese, month by month
- January: Quieter
- February: Quieter
- March: Quieter
- April: Quieter
- May: Best
- June: Best
- July: Good with planning
- August: Good with planning
- September: Best
- October: Good with planning
- November: Quieter
- December: Quieter
Practical
Good to know before the day
Getting there
There is no train: the line closed in 2011. KTEL buses run from Athens’s Kifisos terminal, stopping at the Elaionas metro station, in about two hours to two hours twenty; by car the drive from Athens airport is about 170 km. The old town is best on foot, so plan where guests leave their cars.
Photographs at the monuments
Professional photography at Greece’s monuments needs a permit and a fee. In a 2023 decision for a wedding couple’s next-day shoot at Spinalonga, the Ministry of Culture set the conditions: during opening hours, under a guard’s supervision, with the images free to use for personal purposes only. The Palamidi and the Bourtzi fall under the same rules: your photographer applies to the local ephorate in advance.
Drones
Greece’s Civil Aviation Authority needs no prior permit for open-category flights, but every flight must follow the official Drone Aware GR map, whose no-fly zones include city centres; no flying over people unless the drone weighs under 250 g, and never above 120 m. Over a monument, the ephorate’s permit and fee apply even for personal use — and Nafplio has a declared archaeological site, with a protection zone around the Palamidi.
The legal route
A civil wedding in Greece is legal for couples from anywhere: each of you brings a certificate of no impediment from your own country, with your documents apostilled and officially translated into Greek; the licence usually comes about a week after you apply, and the marriage is registered within 40 days. A church wedding is legal on its own too.
Questions
Questions about marrying in Nafplio
Can we get married at the Palamidi or on the Bourtzi?
Not that we could find. The town’s fee decision speaks only of the town hall and other municipal buildings, the council has approved no outdoor places, and neither fortress is on the list of monuments the state’s heritage fund offers for events. Take your portraits there instead, with the photography permit.
Can we marry in Agios Spyridon, where Kapodistrias was shot?
It is a church of the cathedral parish of Agios Georgios, so ask the cathedral’s priests: the Orthodox Church’s conditions apply — one of you Orthodox, both baptised, the bishop’s licence — and no weddings in Lent or from 1 to 15 August.
How do we get up to the Palamidi?
On foot, by the long stairway from Arvanitia — about an hour from Syntagma Square — or by road to the gate. In summer 2026 the last visitors went in at 19:40; for golden-hour light, stay in the town or on the harbour.
When is Nafplio busiest?
At weekends, when Athenians drive down; in the week of the Nafplio Festival in July; on the summer weekends of the Epidaurus festival; and on the free-entry days at state sites. A weekday in May, June or September is the calm choice.
How hot is it in summer?
Hot: the Observatory’s station at Argos, just inland, averages 34.6 °C in July and 34.9 °C in August. Plan the ceremony for the evening and the portraits for early morning or the last hour of light.
Sources (25)
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Greece
Marrying in the Peloponnese
Plan
Read before you plan
- What a wedding photographer costs in Greece, from Athens to the islandsPublished prices for a wedding photographer in Greece run from €500 for two hours to €9,000 for a full day. The figures with sources and dates, by length of day and island by island, what moves the price — ferries, the meltemi, ΦΠΑ — and how paying works on Lens & Vows.
- Getting married in Greece as foreigners: civil, Orthodox or symbolicHow couples who don’t live in Greece marry there legally: documents and licence, Santorini, Mykonos and Crete, Orthodox and same-sex weddings, symbolic ceremonies and the photographer.
- The best time to get married in Greece: month by month, region by regionOfficial climate normals, the meltemi, the dates Orthodox churches hold no weddings in 2027, the public holidays, and 2027’s sunset and golden hour from Corfu to Rhodes.
- How to choose a wedding photographer: the steps, and the questions to askThe decision in order — whole weddings, style, availability, the package, the contract and deposit, cancellation, delivery and a conversation — then a checklist of questions, with why each one matters.
- Where to elope in Greece: 13 places, from Santorini’s caldera to the ManiThirteen named places across the Cyclades, Athens, Crete, the Ionian, Rhodes and the Peloponnese — what each looks like, how you reach it, when the light is right, and which tickets, permits, protected-beach rules and winds to plan around.
- Wedding venues in Greece: caldera terraces, chapels, beach clubs and olive estatesWhat couples marry in across Greece — cliff-top terraces and wineries, whitewashed chapels, beach clubs, olive estates, island villas, resorts and old towns — with seventeen places that say on their own sites they host weddings, which of them can hold the legal ceremony, and the rules for chapels, beaches and ancient sites.
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