The most theatrical of the Italian lakes, where wooded mountains fall straight into deep blue water and grand villas line the shore with terraced gardens and their own boat docks. A Como wedding arrives by water and unfolds across a villa that has been hosting them for two hundred years.
Italy recognises civil unions, not same-sex marriage, so a same-sex wedding at Lake Como is a symbolic ceremony, and couples make the legal marriage at home or in a marriage-equality country (nearby Spain or Portugal are common). Opposite-sex couples can hold a legally binding civil marriage here. Either way, the celebration is yours; only the paperwork has a postcode.
It is built around the water and the villas. Couples take a lakeside villa, often arriving by boat, and the day moves between terraced gardens, a ceremony with the lake as a backdrop, and a dinner on a terrace as the mountains turn pink. The setting is so complete that it asks very little of you, which is part of why it has drawn weddings for generations and why it sits at the grander end of the budget.
Three corners of the region pull in slightly different directions. None is more correct than another; they are simply moods. The three below are the ones worth knowing first.
We are mapping Lake Como sub-area by sub-area, from Bellagio to the Tremezzina to Varenna. Be first as each one opens, with the honest legal notes that come with it.
The quiz reads your taste and points you to the regions, and the kind of ceremony, that fit you.