Ask most people to picture an Italian wedding and they’ll describe the same thing: a villa on Lake Como, a terrace over the water, boats arriving at dusk. It’s beautiful, it’s been beautiful for two hundred years, and it has become the default. But a growing number of couples are looking elsewhere, partly for budget, partly because they’ve seen the photographs a thousand times and want something that feels like theirs. We spoke to Alessandra Ferretti, a wedding planner with over thirty years of experience organising celebrations across Italy, about where those couples are going and what actually changes when they do.
Where are couples going when they don’t want Como?
“Two places come up again and again. Lake Garda, because it gives you the lake without the price tag and the crowds. And the Ligurian coast, particularly the Cinque Terre, because it looks like nowhere else in Italy. They’re very different propositions. Garda is practical – it works for a hundred guests if you want it to. The Cinque Terre is not practical at all, and that’s rather the point. It works for twenty people who don’t mind walking.”
Lake Garda: the lake nobody photographs
“Garda is the largest lake in Italy and people forget that. Como is dramatic but narrow – you’re always looking at the mountain opposite. Garda opens out. The southern end near Sirmione is almost Mediterranean, olive groves and flat light. The northern end is alpine, with cliffs coming straight down into the water. You can have two completely different weddings sixty kilometres apart.”
“The west shore has something no other Italian lake has: the limonaie, the old lemon houses. Stone pillars, open frames, built in the seventeenth century to grow citrus this far north. Some have been restored as venues. They photograph like nothing else and most couples have never heard of them.”
What about the practical side?
“Verona airport is thirty minutes from the southern shore. Bergamo is about an hour. For British guests that’s a real difference – Como means Milan and then a transfer through traffic. And accommodation on Garda is genuinely varied, from small family hotels to serious five-star. On Como, below a certain level, there simply isn’t much.”
“The other thing I always tell couples considering a wedding on Lake Garda is that the lake has its own wind schedule, and it’s remarkably reliable. The Peler blows from the north in the morning, the Ora comes back from the south in the early afternoon. If you’re planning an outdoor ceremony, that matters. I’ve seen aisle arrangements come apart at two in the afternoon because nobody asked.”
The Cinque Terre: five villages, no cars, no compromises
“The Cinque Terre is the most romantic place I work in and the most demanding. Five villages built into the cliffs, no road access to speak of, everything by train or boat. That constraint is the whole character of the thing Monterosso is the only one with a proper beach and the only one where you can realistically move a group of guests around without it becoming an expedition. Vernazza is the postcard, that little harbour everyone photographs, but the square is tiny. Manarola at sunset is extraordinary and almost impossible logistically. Corniglia sits up on the cliff with nearly four hundred steps from the station – I have never planned a wedding there and I don’t intend to.”
Who is it right for?
“Small groups. Twenty, thirty people at most. Couples who are relaxed about the informal bits;guests arriving by train, dinner in a village restaurant rather than a ballroom, everyone walking. If you want a seating plan for a hundred and a string quartet, this is the wrong coast, and I’ll say so.”
“But for the couples it suits, nothing compares. Getting married in the Cinque Terre gives you terraced vineyards falling into the sea, houses in every colour, and a ceremony where the loudest sound is the water. And because the whole area sits inside the Cinque Terre National Park, with real restrictions on access and building, it never becomes overrun the way other coastlines have. One practical note: the weather turns in autumn and it turns hard. Ligurian storms in October and November are serious. I plan Cinque Terre weddings for late May, June or September, and I build in a covered alternative every single time.”
Does going off the obvious path actually save money?
“On Garda, yes, and noticeably. The same standard of villa, the same guest count, the same three days will cost less than Como. Lakefront property on Como carries a premium that has very little to do with what you actually get on the day. The Cinque Terre is more complicated. The venues are smaller so the headline figures look lower, but everything costs more to move. There are no lorries. Flowers, catering, equipment – it all comes in by train, by boat, or on somebody’s back. Couples are sometimes surprised that a wedding for twenty-five people in a village can cost what a wedding for sixty costs elsewhere.”
What should couples ask before they commit to a location?
“Four questions, and almost nobody asks all four:
- How do my guests physically get from where they sleep to where the ceremony is? Not in theory – actually, with luggage, in heels, at that time of day.
- What happens if it rains? If the answer is vague, the answer is that nothing happens and you’ll be standing in it.
- What time does the light go? Every venue has an hour when it’s extraordinary and an hour when it’s flat, and they’re rarely the ones you’d guess. On Garda’s west shore the sun goes behind the mountain much earlier than people expect.
- And who is actually on site on the day? Not who sold you the venue – who will be standing there at four in the afternoon when the delivery hasn’t arrived.”
Is the shift away from the famous locations permanent?
“I think it’s the natural next step. Fifteen years ago everyone wanted Tuscany. Then Como. Now couples arrive having already seen every version of both on their phones, and they want somewhere that doesn’t look like everyone else’s wedding. What I’d say is this: don’t choose a location because it’s less known. Choose it because it suits how you want the day to feel. Garda if you want space and ease. The Cinque Terre if you want intimacy and don’t mind the effort. Como is still magnificent — it’s just no longer the only answer.”
Alessandra Ferretti is a wedding planner and event designer with over thirty years of experience organising weddings, proposals and vow renewals across Italy for international couples. She works with Kiss Me Italy, the Italian wedding planning team, covering Venice, the northern lakes, Tuscany and the Ligurian coast.
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