Nothing sounds quite as romantic as a destination wedding in Italy. The whole of Italy offers unparalleled beauty and history as a backdrop to an unforgettable wedding. One of the most popular locations, though, is spectacular Lake Como. Its desirability as a wedding destination always on the rise, there are ever more things to consider when planning a wedding here. The more popular the place, the more difficult and exclusive to secure a venue and the exact amenities you want, which means that a Lake Como wedding demands attention to detail, advance planning and most helpfully the expertise and connections of local, professional wedding planners.
Lake Como’s exclusivity is also enhanced by the fact that there are not actually that many venues for weddings on the lake, so it is absolutely essential to book the venue well in advance, particularly if you are planning a Saturday wedding. The same applies for churches in the area, but then there are even stricter rules applying to foreigners getting married here. Plan ahead, double check and plan some more – careful planning and scheduling cannot be emphasized enough.
Advance planning should not be that difficult for destination weddings because most couples will be planning time off, travel and considering travel and accommodation for many out-of-town guests – so the timeline is usually quite long anyway.
Taking this need for extra planning into account, there are also quite a lot of basic, but crucial, considerations in planning any wedding, including your Lake Como or Italian wedding. While there are a million details that you can plan and decide for yourself regardless of your wedding location (a comprehensive checklist can be found here), we’ve included the items that are significantly different or change the timeline considerably if you are planning a destination wedding:
- For civil weddings in Italy, find out for certain what paperwork and forms are required well in advance. Meet with the consul and ensure that all of your documentation is in order and on hand. Handling the paperwork and bureaucracy well in advance will ensure that there are no bad surprises closer to the wedding day and will help you rest easy in planning the other details.
- If planning a trip to Italy to check everything in advance, be sure to note that many things cannot be done on weekends. Hair, make-up and catering trials are not possible.
- If planning a destination wedding, and guests are coming from abroad, send invitations and instructions/information well in advance to give your guests enough time to plan and prepare their attendance and travel. This probably means printing and sending invitations far in advance of what would normally be required for a local weddin
- Finalize guest list as soon as possible. It is a bit tricky to know how to and for how many to plan your festivities if you don’t have an accurate guest list and headcount early on in your planning – especially because you are planning for out-of-town accommodation as well as standard things like place settings and seating charts. And of course with venues being scarce, you want to ensure you book a venue that can facilitate all of your guests comfortably – and that you have not booked something that is likewise much too large for your smaller, more intimate group.
- For destination weddings, you would be wise to start initial planning, budgeting, inviting and hiring local planners two years in advance. At this stage you can start organizing, planning a budget, selecting your wedding party, making a guest list and hiring a local, Italian planner. The planner can help you arrange venues and ensure that you get the date and place you want. Secure the venue as soon as possible and send the invitations very early. You may want to consider looking into local hotels for out-of-town guests and reserve a block of rooms.
- Closer to one year before the wedding, you can start researching and hiring the support staff, such as photographers, musicians/DJs, florists, caterers, etc. Your wedding planner will be an expert on this front, having multiple connections locally to assist you in hiring the right talent for your event.
- Sometime in the year before the wedding, you will start shopping for wedding attire and shoes. This can be stressful and require a lot of time and fittings, so do not leave this for the last minute. While we have seen brides show up in Italy and buy a pair of wedding shoes two days before the wedding, this is not recommended! You also need to think about the fact that you will be transporting/traveling with these pieces, so might consider either streamlined, simple attire or plan to buy and fit your wedding attire in Italy (also well in advance of the wedding).
- Day-of-event: Planning the details of the actual event requires a lot more detail than you might have if you are thousands of miles away from Italy, so you will either need to arrange a walk-through/rehearsal trip, during which time you can arrange the cake, the catering, etc. as well as look at hotels and venues – or you might empower a planner to act on your behalf for a number of these items. They may be able to make some decisions and do a lot of legwork, confirming and reconfirming items when you are not available
