Italian Lakes Wedding Planner

Lucia is a typical row boat once used at Lake Como for transporting goods to the markets. It got famous in the well known romance written by Alessandro Manzoni I Promessi sposi, a story about spouses that had to outrun lots of hindrances in the 18th century before getting married at Lecco.
Today some gentlemen do collect those old boats, restore them and rent them out for special occasions like marriages or row-competitions.

For Axel and Melanie we organized one of these old boats, got it decorated and had 2 strong men to row them 600 metres to Ossuccio with its really cute townhall. All guests were waiting and applauded at the arrival. As well the major awaited them under the historic arcades to start with the civil wedding ceremony.
Sure that all majors in Italy have to read out the legal articles, but they do it with much pleasure. And often there are situations to laugh as it is not always very easy for the celebrant to pronounce all those foreign names and cities. So with this, all wedding ceremonies get a very soft and smiling touch, although they are legally accepted.

After the ceremony we arranged a toast in the garden below the arcades, just to have some sips of Prosecco and some light fingerfood, nicely prepared right next to the lake.

Then we proceeded by boat to the famous Villa Balbianello for some beautiful photos of bride and groom in the elegant garden of this villa. Nice to walk here where already successful films have been registered, like Ocean Eleven, Star Wars, James Bond etc.

Our photographer Julian Kanz had much fun to shoot Melanie and Axel in all parts of the pittoresque property. And the best is, that even all guests do enjoy this one-hour-stop as they can stroll through the gardens and relax at each corner with wonderful views over Lake Como.
Continue Reading »

After Diane’s wonderful post I would like to come back on Siobhan and Stuart’s wedding to tell you about the floral arrangements of the event that officially opened Wedding season in Villa Bossi on Lake Orta.

As floral designer I met Siobhan and Stuart through Valentina, our wedding coordinator specialized on weddings on Lake Orta and Lake Maggiore.
I leave to her introducion this lovely couple:

Shiobhan and Stuart are a nice couple coming from Scotland.
I never met them before they came here for their wedding. We planned all details via email and our collaboration started more than one year ago!
Sibhoan is a wonderful and sweet person. She faced every step of the planning with a deep joy and enthusiasm and it was a pleasure and honor for me helping her and her groom to make their dream come true.

They decided for an intimate wedding on Lake Orta because they wanted to share the perfect atmosphere of this quaint corner of Italy only with their close friends and family. They spent some days in Orta taking also the occasion to enjoy the lake in a special period of the year: Early Spring.
This moment is special here, flowers and plans and blooming and the tourists are still few.
A perfect choice!

From the floral point of view Siobhan and Stuart’s wedding was really unusual, they chose a theme based on pink and yellow.

For the bride and grooms who wish to celebrate their wedding outdoors in a garden or by the lake shores a colorful palette of pink and yellow could be a trendy solution! It can be dynamic and out of classical choices making the atmosphere warmer colorful and charming! Continue Reading »

Balbianello Villa – Official Rental Fees 2012

Many of you write us to ask further information on Villa del Balbianello rental.
For this reason we would love to give you more information on our blog that we hope could be useful.
As mentioned Villa del Balbianello is a very exclusive and unique venue, for this reason rental fee is related to the luxury and exclusivity of the location itself.
Click here to find official rental fee that Villa del Balbianello property gave us for 2012

After the great and special rehearsal dinner to a beautiful Lake Como beach club, the Big Day has finally arrived for Antonin & Louise.
Many details made this wedding really different!

Both bride and groom stayed to Villa D’Este where they spent few relaxing days enjoying the lake and warm summer weather.
On the wedding day Antonin joined his friends who stayed for almost a week in a fantastic Villa with pool and private pier located in Laglio.

Ceremony was arranged to Villa del Balbianello followed by an wonderful reception in a private Villa in Cernobbio, on the lakeshore: a real masterpiece of the Lake Como architecture.
From this Villa, Antonin and his best men got on a charming Riva motorboat to go to Villa del Balbianello: they were really handsome.

In the meanwhile, the bride, together with her dad and the bridesmaids left Villa D’Este on a second charming Riva motorboat and reached Antonin who already reached Villa del Balbianello waiting for her together with family and friends, all very excited.
Louise was so beautiful in her wedding gown!

The ceremony was celebrated in the Loggia of Villa del Balbianello and conducted by a close friend of the couple.

All decorations were precious and elegant, with a big arch of flowers as main detail. Continue Reading »

You will surely remember about our beautiful bride Nicola who got married last June with Bryan on Lake Orta. We have already told you about their wonderful wedding with ceremony to Sacro Monte church and with romantic and intimate reception to follow to Hotel San Rocco.

For the first time we will talk you about the main theme Nicola chose for the wedding and this is the first time we are presenting here a gold themed wedding on Lake Orta!
Such and original choice Nicola and Bryan did for their wedding in italy.
As we told you Nicola and Bryan decided for an intimate wedding for no more than 25 people.
In the afternoon of a gold sunny day on the lake Nicola arrived to the church with her father and her sister.

They were perfect! Nicola’s dress was amazing with all laces and the fist touch of gold was given by the sweet ivory and gold dress her lovely sister had on.
Bridal bouquet and decorations in the church were of course ivory themed to keep them simple and elegant. Chic and delicate gold touch was kept for the reception to the reception.

The arrangements of the tables were surely a touch of good taste Nicola has indeed.

It was made up with just some ivory floating flowers, ivory tablecloths and chairs to begin on the three round table in Rotary Room overlooking the lake. Continue Reading »

September is here and it is one of the hottest wedding month of the year on our lakes. This month we will post a lot ove events on our Just Married section.
Opening act was Eve-Marie and Roland’s wedding!

Eve-Marie and Roland are coming from Ireland and they chose Italy and its romantic Lake Orta for their love dream!

A great sunny day was the perfect frame of the event. Religious ceremony was held in Sacro Monte church in Orta one of the most beautiful churches in the area.

Eve-Marie arrived to the church on an amazing vintage Bentely together with 4 elegant bridesmaids dressed in light blue.

Eve-Marie color scheme was based on ivory cream and light blue.
You can notice it in floral arrangements and bridal bouquet created with light blue hydrangeas and cream ivory Vendela rose.

In the church Eve-Marie wanted tall candles for the aisle to get to the altar. So original!

We do not want to ruin the surprise! We will come back soon telling you more about Eve-Marie and Roland’s wedding with details and many amazing pictures! Stay tuned!

All images © Italian Lakes Wedding. All right reserved.

On the 21st of October 2009, Sandra and John get married at Villa D’Este.
Their story is very romantic and the atmosphere that rainy day brought to their special day was magical and incredibly touching. We were all excited and the time went so fast!

The ceremony was originally organized outdoor, but because of bad weather, it was moved inside the beautiful Column Room.
While Sandra was getting ready, all of us were waiting in the room welcoming the guests and John, the groom.

He reached the altar accompanied by the music of great song La vita è bella.
The florist made an incredible job, we were all astonished…

Finally Sandra appeared, she was beautiful and radiant as John’s son who had the honor to lead her to his father.

Thanks to the great job of our lovely celebrants celebrants Diane and Giuseppe, the whole ceremony was touching and real, and the newlyweds were very happy and surprised!

After the ceremony Sandra, John and their guests had a long walk inside the Hotel to take unforgettable pictures, before coming back to the room for a delicious reception dinner. Continue Reading »

As floral designer one of the most important moments during a wedding planning is the decision to take for floral arrangements and colors to use. During first contacts I always try to understand bride and groom’s tastes and needs to suggest the best solution for them.
Sometimes they have very clear ideas in their minds. Basing on this and on my experience and creativity i try to develop a floral arrangement project that will be just perfect the day of the wedding.
This is what happened with Jennifer and Oliver a British couple whose wedding was planned for September 2009.

One year before Jennifer told me about the floral scheme she had in her mind. All was based on purple matching with ivory. The very good hint arrived in following emails when Jennifer mentioned about the idea of adding Mediterranean aromatic herbs among flowers.

I was delighted with the design and colours they were truly beautiful. One of my many memories from our special day is the scent of the mint and rosemary in the flowers. I kept getting scents of the mint throughout the day and it is something that will always remind me of my wedding day.
All the guests commented on the amazing table displays – it was better than how I’d imagined – romantic and elegant with the candles and petals.
I even managed to fly home with my bouquet and we are drying it out to keep as a memento of the day!
Thank you once again for your fantastic work – the flowers were truly beautiful.
Jenny and Oliver

This was planned to recall Italian style and the wonderful scents she loved in her childhood. Just a little great idea that gave me the occasion to work on a floral arrangement based on purple and ivory with fresh and perfumed Mediterranean herbs such as rosemary, sage, mint and lavender. They could be a perfect green base to create the bouquet on but also centerpieces and ceremony decorations. Aromatic herbs offer an evocative range of colors from green to silverish of sage and lavender up to deep green of peppermint. Last but not least little lilac-blue lavender blooms could be the trait-d’union between purple and ivory flowers of the compositions.

This was my proposal for Jennifer and Oliver’s’ wedding floral arrangement. Jennifer feed back came back very quick. She was really excited for that: she loved all details of my proposal, she was literally looking forward to see and smell the flowers on her wedding day.

We started a planning that lasted few months and leaded to final result that you can see in this post.
Everybody and especially bride and groom loved the floral arrangements. Jennifer and Oliver after their honeymoon sent also a lovely email to thank us for all. You can read a piece of that here.

But I also want to tell you something more about Jennifer and Oliver’s wedding!
They arranged all in Pallanza on Lake Maggiore. Ceremony was held in Villa San Remigio while reception was arranged to Grand Hotel Majestic where almost all guests spend their Italian days.

Wedding coordinator was Valentina Lombardi who is part of Italian Lakes Wedding Team. Photographs were taken from Photo27 from Milan that I thank you for giving us the beautiful images you can see here.

The civil ceremony has been celebrated in wonderful Music Room (Sala della Musica) of Villa San Remigio. String quartet classical music created a wonderful romantic atmosphere.

Big Jennifer and Oliver’s day begun with a cloudy day but after few hours sun decided to come back again turing into a wonderful summer end day!

Villa San Remigio wide park and its secular tress, fountains and statues are the perfect settings for wonderful wedding pictures. Have a look to the natural style and great impact of the picture here below, simple but wonderful!

At the end of the ceremony Jennifer hanged on her bouquet a funny “Just Married” sign with two hearts, what a funny idea! Continue Reading »

In summer 2008 I had the pleasure to meet Amy and Tom for the first time. She is a lovely Irish girl and he is a handsome English guy. Such a great couple! After visiting many venues across Northern Lakes area they reached Orta San Giulio and they fell in love with that immediately. Amy and Tom thought that Lake Orta incorporated the precise idea they had for an intimate and romantic wedding on the lake.

My first wedding of Summer Season 2009 was Amy and Tom’s: 3rd July 2009. Amy arrived some days before to settle in Orta and define some last details.

She spent some lovely days before the event, with her parents and family in a lovely villa on the lake that I often suggest to my couples. It is just in front of Ortello Gulf.

And finally the wedding day came!
Amy and her father took a nice walk from the lovely house on the shores to reach village church. Tom, flower girls, purple dressed bridesmaids and all guests were all waiting for her there. Lilac was the theme of whole wedding.

Amy choose this wonderful color for her main theme and Monika Andenmatten from La Piccola Selva created wonderful arrangements to accomplish her desires. She based her work on a color palette going from white to purple-lilac. Monika created wonderful church arrangements for the balusters and external columns of the church itself.

At the end of the ceremony… just a lovely kiss of bride and groom! Photographer Andrea Dapueto took a wonderful shot of it. Andrea Dapueto was the perfect reporter for such a wonderful event. Continue Reading »

We are back with the second part of the special session of posts on couples that on Summer 2009 chose Orta and Villa Bossi for their wedding in Italy.

Even if these couples chose similar options they personalized their wedding making it unique and very different from each other.

Laura and Kieran chose for their wedding cranberry red as theme color. They added a touch of this shade of red in every detail starting from bridesmaid dress. She was nice Laura’s sister.

Cranberry Red was the color that Manuela the flower designer used to create bridal bouquet. It was made of wonderful Lily Stargazer.

At the end of the ceremony newly weds and their guests had a pretty walk along the pretty roads of Orta village up to the main square to take wonderful wedding pictures. Continue Reading »

One of the most beautiful weddings I worked on was Victoria and Daniel’s one last year. Victoria herself talked about it in a post she wrote for Italian Lakes Wedding site.
It is with pleasure that I come back talking about Victoria and Daniel’s wedding just in occasion of their first anniversary. I still recall the real satisfaction I felt for that event as floral designer.
On my website www.lapiccolaselva.it you could also see Victoria and Daniel’s photo gallery realized by Felix Segovia coming from Madrid.

Victoria is an kind English girl, very nice and simple. She is literally in love with Italy and its lakes. This was the reason because she choose to organize her wedding in our lovely country. It took almost a year, traveling across all lakes to take the final decision for her destination wedding. At the end she picked up Lake Maggiore.

Religious ceremony was held in San Martino church in Lesa, a tiny village on Piemonte side of Lake Maggiore, between Stresa and Arona. San Martino church is beautiful cosy and intimate and it is just few steps from the lake.
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Villa Muggia was elected as reception venue. It was simply stunning! Villa’s park was embellished with all spring blooming that bridegroom and their guests really loved. Villa Muggia ‘s park is full of azaleas and camelias. These are all lake plants that are exceptionally beautiful in Spring.

As floral designer I would like to tell you the most importan part as far as my job is concerned of Victoria and Daniel’s wedding: floral arrangements!
From the very first meeting Victoria was really decided on her wedding theme. She wanted a solar theme that really could recall Italy.
So we choose together LEMONS as main theme of the wedding. I think Lemons could be the right element for all that Victoria was looking for!
Since the color theme was really strong, I decided to smooth it a little in order to match wedding feeling of such a wonderful day.
I suggested Victoria some pastel colors she agreed with me.I picked up Vendela roses and peonies. I love peonies they make me think about vintage style, romanticism, Belle Époque, fascinating ages and elegance.
This flower is really delicate and it has a limited blooming period: April/May until mid June. Of course nowadays we can have flowers like this in every single period of the year, but consider that ordering them out of season could be very expensive and most of all the flower itself will last for very few time. Peonies cannot stay for long time under summer sun and in just 2 hours they will be totally burned. Continue Reading »

If you are thinking about getting married on Italian Lakes, Lake Maggiore could offer many special corners to arrange your wonderful day.
We’ve already talked about wonderful villas and soon we will also tell you about luxury hotels on lake shores and Borromean Islands.

Keeping on exploring most beautiful venues on Lake Maggiore we would like to talk you about two interesting venues to arrange a unique and special event on lake shores: a beach wedding!
On Piemonte side of Lake Maggiore there are two beach resorts that are just perfect to arrange a fantastic beach wedding: Lido di Baveno and Lido di Stresa. Both venues are casual but also elegant and fine.

But what is really special on this venues is the possibility to organize a legal catholic ceremony or a legal civil ceremony on the open air just on the beach.
Isn’t it just wonderful?

Ceremony in this case will have breathtaking feel that you and your guest will remember forever!
Without any transfer you and your guests will taste your aperitif on the beach and a lovely dinner menu – with fish and typical courses on the region – will be served in the rooms inside or under the wonderful marquee on the beach with lake view.
With right details these two venues will add a touch of exotic to your party.

We imagine for you a flower arch for the ceremony and many rose petals e and lanterns on the bride’s path to altar. Then beautiful centerpieces with water, candles and flowers such as roses or orchids that recall lake theme.
Another detail to think of is that, giving the right time notification, your party can be enlarged up to very late at night with dances and open bar. Continue Reading »

Balbianello Villa – Official Rental Fees 2012

Many of you write us to ask further information on Villa del Balbianello rental.
For this reason we would love to give you more information on our blog that we hope could be useful.
As mentioned Villa del Balbianello is a very exclusive and unique venue, for this reason rental fee is related to the luxury and exclusivity of the location itself.
Click here to find official rental fee that Villa del Balbianello property gave us for 2012

Lenno it’s an important center located on the west side shore of Lario area.
It is situated between the promontory of Lavedo and Porlezza and counts a bit less than 1800 residents.
Here begins the coast called Tremezzina that ends at the Maiolica.
Lenno has roman origins proved by the numerous graveyards and ancient furnishings discovered during archeological excavations.
Starting from Lenno, very suggestive the romantic although intense walk that runs up Tremezzo Mount(1700 m.). High recommended the excursion by pleasure boat that offers a splendid view of the Villas from the lake passing through the promontory where lies Villa Balbianello in all its splendor till reaching Comacina Island.

Villa del Balbianello it’s a legacy of Guido Monzino to the FAI which preserves the most important Italian monumental Villas and gardens.
The Villa was Built for Cardinal Angelo Maria Durini at the end of the XVIII century and stands on the tip of a steep promontory overlooking Lake Como, almost opposite Bellagio.

Guido Monzino, its last owner was an explorer, so that nowadays the Villa looks exactly how he desired.
In particular, the place is plenty of marvelous collection art and handcraft pieces of worldwide: China, Africa and pre-Colombian art, precious English and French furniture of the 1700s and a small museum that bring our memory faraway to his adventurous expeditions.

Both blessing vows and reception can take place in the gardens and loggia facing the lake.
The bride can romantically reach by water taxi her groom and guests waiting for her at the Villa.
While the guests are already there waiting for the bride after have had a fascinating boat transfer sipping a glass of champagne accompanied by a soft musical background.

Once at the Villa, you will be welcomed by the banqueting’ s skilful staff who’ll be serving finger food and cocktails on trays. The garden could be set with chairs and small tables or even chaise-longues allowing your guests to mingle and enjoy the local delicatessen and be pampered by the absolutely unique and precious scenery! Continue Reading »