Villa del Grumello wedding

The villa stands on the water a few minutes north of Como, on the stretch of lakeside path known as the Chilometro della Conoscenza that runs from the city out towards Cernobbio.

It has a park behind it, a glasshouse in the garden and a view back across the water to the city it almost belongs to. Como is six minutes away and Cernobbio five, which makes it the easiest venue on this lake to get a large guest list to and from.

Weddings are offered primarily on Saturdays, which is worth knowing early, because most of the grand houses further up the shore work the other way round.

The hire takes the whole ground floor of the villa and as much of the first floor as the event needs.

Connected rooms through the main body of the villa, which is where dinner sits and where the music runs late.

Part of it comes with the hire depending on the layout, for dressing, staging or a quieter room through the evening.

Between the villa and the water, for the ceremony and the aperitivo, with the lake and the city beyond it.

In the garden and quoted separately at just under €3,000 plus VAT. It is the wet-weather answer and the prettiest room on the property on a clear evening.

A Villa del Grumello wedding starts from €100,000, and for optimal results we recommend budgeting €200,000 all-in for 90 to 130 guests.

From just over €12,000 to just under €14,000 plus 22% VAT, for the evening from five until one, with the figure moving on what the event actually uses.

Cleaning, climate control, the parking, the staff on site through the evening and up to 150 transparent chairs.

That last item is not a small thing. A hundred and fifty chairs hired in for a wedding is a four-figure line at most venues, and here it arrives with the building.

A courtesy golf cart runs guests up from the gate on arrival, with an extended service available at €577 plus VAT.

The contract is five in the afternoon to one in the morning. Extensions run to three, at just over €1,000 an hour once VAT is on them.

Just under €3,000 plus VAT, added to the hire.

Catering, flowers, furniture beyond the chairs, lighting, music and photography, all of which you choose and all of which you can negotiate, because there is no approved list.

On this lake, mandatory supplier lists are the rule rather than the exception. Several of the great houses name a caterer and nothing else is permitted. One carries written penalties for using anyone outside the list. Another supplies every service itself and takes no outside vendors at all.

Villa del Grumello imposes nobody at all.

For a couple who already has a florist, a band, a photographer or a caterer they trust, that is worth real money, and it is worth more again at a hundred and thirty guests where catering is the single biggest line in the budget. It also means a real tender, with several kitchens competing, rather than one price from the only one allowed through the gate.

There are about twenty-eight parking spaces inside the property for a wedding of up to a hundred and thirty, so arrivals have to be planned rather than left to happen.

In practice that means coaches or cars from Como and Cernobbio, both of which are five or six minutes away, rather than a hundred and thirty people arriving independently. It is a smaller problem here than it would be at a remote villa, because the hotels are close and the road is a city road, but it is the one piece of logistics this venue genuinely needs.

The villa is on the Chilometro della Conoscenza between Como and Cernobbio, on the western shore at the very southern end of the lake.

Como is six minutes away and Cernobbio five.

Milan Malpensa is 55 minutes by road, Linate an hour and two and Bergamo an hour and 19. Lugano across the Swiss border is 36 minutes.

Bellagio is 42 minutes and Varenna an hour and ten, which matters only if somebody has booked a hotel up the lake by mistake.

The open supplier list is the headline, and it should be.

Most of the conversations we have about Lake Como end with a caterer the couple did not choose and a florist they were handed. Here the whole production is yours to assemble, and at a hundred and thirty guests the difference between a mandatory kitchen and a chosen one is routinely a five-figure number as well as a better dinner. We always price this venue with two or three caterers side by side on the first pass, because for once we can.

The second thing is what is already inside the fee, which is more than it looks. A hundred and fifty chairs, the cleaning, the climate control, the staff and the parking are all lines that arrive separately almost everywhere else. Read the hire against another villa’s hire and this one looks mid -priced; read it against another villa’s hire plus its furniture order and it does not.

The third is the Saturday. Availability is offered primarily on Saturdays, which is the reverse of the houses up the shore that sell weekdays only, and it means a couple set on a Saturday wedding has a real option here instead of a compromise. It also means the dates go early.

Then there is the proximity, which quietly solves things. Six minutes from Como is six minutes from several hundred hotel rooms, a railway station and a town where guests can spend the Friday. Nobody is stranded, nothing has to end because the last boat goes, and the twenty-eight parking spaces stop being a problem the moment the hotels are walking distance from each other.

Magic Day plans weddings at Villa del Grumello from the first conversation to the final farewell. That means the Saturday secured, the fee agreed against what the event actually uses, the caterers tendered properly, the glasshouse added if the forecast asks for it, the extra hours priced before signature, the hotels blocked in Como and Cernobbio, and the arrivals staged against twenty-eight parking spaces.

We have worked the Italian lakes for years. Tell us the dates you are considering and how many people are coming, and we will tell you what the evening comes to.