From 10 April 2026, entering Europe changes. Not for guests flying in from Berlin or Barcelona, but for your American, British, Australian and Canadian guests — which is most of the people sitting in your ceremonies in Tuscany. If you don’t prepare them, nobody will. And a guest blocked at check-in at JFK, or turned away at the gate at Heathrow, isn’t just a bureaucratic headache: it’s the wedding day falling apart.
The EU has introduced two parallel digital systems. They work differently, they activate at different points in the journey, but they produce the same result if ignored: the guest either doesn’t board the plane, or gets stuck at Pisa arrivals with an hour’s queue in front of them.
Active from 10 April 2026. Replaces the passport stamp with a digital record: facial image, fingerprints, document details. The first time — and only the first time — requires a dedicated desk at the airport. Estimates suggest processing times increase by up to 70% compared to today.
In practical terms: a group of 40 guests landing at Pisa on a Saturday morning in July could wait between 90 and 120 minutes before clearing arrivals. The transfer to the villa is booked for 2pm. The welcome drinks are at 5pm. If you haven’t communicated this well in advance, the first moment of the wedding weekend has already started late.
What you can do, practically:
Active in the final quarter of 2026. It is not a visa. It’s a pre-authorisation applied for online — 10 to 20 minutes to complete the form, €20, valid for three years. Mandatory for citizens of approximately 60 visa-exempt countries: the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and others.
Without an ETIAS, the airline will not allow the passenger to board. This isn’t something that can be sorted out at the airport: the problem arises at check-in, in America or Australia, when the airline’s system checks the document. If the ETIAS is missing, the guest doesn’t travel. Full stop.
Approval is almost always instant. But the system can trigger a manual review: in those cases, it can take anywhere from 4 to 30 working days. A guest who applies on 15 September for a wedding on 20 October could find themselves waiting with no update.
What you can do, practically:
EU regulations allow for an intermediary: you can complete the ETIAS application on behalf of a guest, with a signed written authorisation from them. It’s not complicated, but it requires care. A mistake in the passport number renders the authorisation invalid at the boarding gate.
How to do it properly:
The Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics run from 6 to 22 February 2026. Tuscany isn’t hosting any events, but the effects ripple across Italy’s entire transport network. Milan and Venice airports will be operating at full capacity, with knock-on effects on security checks at national hubs such as Rome Fiumicino. For winter weddings, advising guests to avoid Milan connections and use direct flights into Pisa or Rome is a practical precaution, not an overreaction.
On the rail side, the early months of 2026 saw incidents of sabotage on the Rome–Florence and Rome–Milan lines, with cancellations affecting tens of thousands of passengers. The risk of strikes in the aviation sector remains real.
For weddings where guests land in the north and travel to Tuscany by train, having a backup plan with private road transfers isn’t a luxury — it’s the difference between a ceremony that starts on time and one that starts two hours late.
The Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics run from 6 to 22 February 2026. Tuscany isn’t hosting any events, but the effects ripple across Italy’s entire transport network. Milan and Venice airports will be operating at full capacity, with knock-on effects on security checks at national hubs such as Rome Fiumicino. For winter weddings, advising guests to avoid Milan connections and use direct flights into Pisa or Rome is a practical precaution, not an overreaction.
On the rail side, the early months of 2026 saw incidents of sabotage on the Rome–Florence and Rome–Milan lines, with cancellations affecting tens of thousands of passengers.
The risk of strikes in the aviation sector remains real. For weddings where guests land in the north and travel to Tuscany by train, having a backup plan with private road transfers isn’t a luxury — it’s the difference between a ceremony that starts on time and one that starts two hours late.
Guests don’t need to understand every detail of EES and ETIAS. They need to know what to do, when to do it, and that there’s someone to help if they get stuck. The difference between a message that worries people and one that reassures them isn’t in the content — it’s in the tone.
Save the date:
“Please make sure your passport is valid for at least six months beyond the wedding date. There are new entry procedures for Europe in 2026 — we’ll walk you through everything step by step.”
Clear instructions on EES and ETIAS, broken down by nationality. A FAQ that answers real questions (“Do I need to print the ETIAS?” No, it’s digital. “Can I leave it to the last minute?” Better not — here’s why). A direct link to the official portal at europa.eu/etias.
In 2025, Tuscany hosted 2,860 international weddings, up 4.8% on the previous year. Direct economic impact reached €213.7 million, up 14.1% on 2024. More than 50% of couples are non-European: the largest share comes from the United States, followed by the United Kingdom — which post-Brexit is subject to EES/ETIAS in exactly the same way as an American citizen — and then Canada, Australia and Brazil.
Over 65% of events take place in villas, castles and rural estates outside city centres. That means transfers from the airport along country roads and farm tracks, not metro lines and taxis. The journey from airport to venue is already the most vulnerable part of a Tuscany wedding. Add unplanned EES queues at arrivals and you have all the ingredients for a disaster — or for a service that genuinely justifies what you charge.
Tuscany remains the world’s number one destination for luxury weddings. Europe’s new digital borders don’t change that. What they change is the amount of work required to protect that reputation — yours and the destination’s. The wedding planner who in 2026 knows how to handle EES, ETIAS, the Olympics and the railways is the one clients tell their friends about. The rest is execution.
When you are ready, contact me. It will be wonderful to plan every detail together.
