Lake Como Has George Clooney. Lake Garda Has Everything Else

Ask anyone to name an Italian lake and they’ll say Como. There’s a fairly obvious reason for that, and he’s owned Villa Oleandra in Laglio since 2002.

But drive forty minutes east and you hit a lake roughly six times the size that somehow gets a fraction of the attention. We asked Alessandra Ferretti, an Italian wedding planner with over thirty years of experience across the country, why couples keep getting married on Lake Garda once they’ve done the maths on Como.

Why are couples choosing Garda over Como?

“Usually because they’ve looked at the numbers. A lakefront villa on Como carries a premium that has very little to do with what you actually get on the day. You’re paying for the postcard.”

“I want to be fair about this. Como is genuinely beautiful and some of those villas are extraordinary. But couples arrive at the figures, work out what the difference would buy them elsewhere in the budget, and start asking what else exists. That’s usually the moment somebody mentions Garda.”

What makes it different?

“The thing nobody tells you is that the north and south ends barely feel like the same lake.”

“The southern shore around Sirmione is almost Mediterranean. Flat light, olive groves, and this long thin peninsula with the ruins of a Roman villa at the tip. They call it the Grotte di Catullo, after the poet, although whether Catullus ever actually lived there is something academics still enjoy arguing about.”

“Go north and it turns alpine. Cliffs straight into the water, the wind picks up, and by Riva del Garda you’re basically in the mountains. Two completely different weddings, sixty kilometres apart.”

Is there anything Garda has that the other lakes don’t?

“The limonaie. Seventeenth-century lemon houses on the west shore, stone pillars and open wooden frames, built to nurse citrus through winters this far north. Several have been restored as venues.”

“They photograph like nothing else in Italy and most couples have never heard of them. That’s the part I enjoy, honestly. Showing someone a building from 1650 that hasn’t been photographed to death.”

What about getting guests there?

“Verona airport is thirty minutes from the southern shore. Bergamo about an hour. For guests flying from the UK that’s a real difference against Como, which in practice means Milan and then a transfer through traffic that undoes whatever you saved on the flight.”

“Accommodation is more varied too. Garda has everything from family-run hotels to serious five-star, which matters when you’re housing a mixed group. On Como, below a certain price point, the options thin out quickly.”

Anything couples don’t realise?

“That Verona is on the doorstep. Romeo and Juliet’s Verona, with the Roman amphitheatre that still stages opera every summer. Some couples do the ceremony there and the reception on the lake. Others use it for the welcome dinner. Either way it gives guests something to do with the days either side, which is more than most destinations manage.”

“And the wind. Garda has a wind schedule and it’s remarkably reliable — the Peler blows from the north through the morning, the Ora comes back from the south in the early afternoon. Windsurfers plan holidays around it.”

“If you’re doing an outdoor ceremony that matters more than it sounds. I’ve seen aisle arrangements come apart at two in the afternoon because nobody asked the question.”

Is there a downside?

“Of course there is, and pretending otherwise would be silly.”

“The stretch near Peschiera has Gardaland, Italy’s biggest theme park, and in August the surrounding area is exactly what you’d expect. Some towns on the eastern shore get genuinely mobbed in high season. And the northern end, gorgeous as it is, is a long way from Verona airport when somebody’s grandmother is doing the transfer in a minibus.”

“None of that rules anything out. It just means location choice on Garda is a real decision rather than a formality.”

When should people go?

“September and early October, and it isn’t close. The crowds thin, the heat breaks, and the light does that amber thing in the late afternoon that photographers become evangelical about. Late April through early June is the second window — more colour in the gardens, slightly more rain risk.”

“July and August are hot, busy and expensive. Winter is quiet and cheap but a lot of venues simply close.”

What makes the biggest difference to how it turns out?

“Treating it as three days rather than one afternoon. Welcome dinner the night before, something on the water, a slow farewell brunch. Guests who’ve flown two hours deserve more than a single evening.”

“Beyond that it comes down to detail that isn’t written down anywhere. Which villa garden holds its light until six in October and looks flat an hour later. Which caterer can genuinely handle a hillside with no kitchen access. Which properties allow a marquee and which will tell you they do and then produce a licence saying otherwise.”

“That knowledge belongs to people who work in one place for years. It’s why most couples planning a wedding on Garda from abroad end up working with somebody local rather than doing it cold.”

So Como or Garda?

“Como will always have the name recognition. It’s got the film star, the villas everyone’s seen, a century of glamour behind it. I’d never talk anyone out of it.”

“Garda has the space, the shorter transfers, the money left over, and a lemon house from 1650 that nobody’s ruined yet. Take your pick.

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Adam Regan: Deputy Editor

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