Villa Cipressi

The garden. Most Lake Como villas have a lawn by the water. Villa Cipressi has a botanical garden that falls towards the lake in a series of terraces, each one a different room: one for the ceremony at the water's edge, one under the cypresses for the aperitivo, one around the fountain for dinner. Your guests move down through it during the evening, and every level has the lake in front of it.

The view. Varenna faces the very centre of Lake Como, where the three branches meet, with Bellagio across the water and the mountains closing the horizon on every side. It is the most photographed stretch of the lake for a reason, and from the Front Lake Terrace you have it to yourselves.

The village. You are not isolated on a private estate an hour from anywhere. You are inside Varenna, with its lakeside walk, its little harbour and its bars, so guests can stroll to dinner the night before, take the ferry to Bellagio the day after, and stay in hotels a few minutes' walk from the villa. Milan is about an hour away by direct train.

The style. Villa Cipressi suits a particular kind of wedding: elegant, restrained, a little old-fashioned in the best sense. White, ivory and blush, black tie, a prosecco tower, a string quartet in the garden. The villa does the rest.

A wedding at Villa Cipressi moves down the garden and then indoors, and each space has its moment.

The Front Lake Terrace is at the bottom of the garden, right at the water's edge, and it is where you marry, with up to eighty guests seated and nothing behind you but the lake and Bellagio. The Cipressi Terrace, under the tall cypresses that give the villa its name, takes the aperitivo. The Fountain Terrace is where dinner is laid, around the old fountain, with the light going down over the water.

Inside, the villa keeps its historic rooms. The Sala del Pergolato seats up to seventy at round tables. The Sala degli Stucchi, with its stucco ceilings, seats up to thirty-two and is the ceremony's rain plan. The Sala dei Volatili becomes the dance floor after dinner, with the party allowed to go on until half past two in the morning, and with the veranda it also takes the aperitivo or a small dinner if the weather turns.

The rooms are spread through the villa: twenty-four doubles, four junior suites and three suites, some with space for a third guest, many looking over the garden or the lake. When you take the whole villa they are all yours, and if your guest list is longer, the Hotel Royal Victoria and Casa du Lac, both run by the same family of hotels, are a short walk away in Varenna.

The villa can also arrange a boat for portraits on the lake, the day before or the day after, with the villa's facade and the garden rising behind you.

Two ways to marry here

A day on the terraces, for up to forty-nine guests, all season. All season, the villa reserves its main terraces for your wedding, the Front Lake Terrace for the ceremony, the Cipressi Terrace for the aperitivo, the Fountain Terrace for dinner, while the hotel carries on around you. It is the natural format for an intimate wedding, and it works from as few as fifteen guests. The garden is a public botanical garden by day, so we time the ceremony for the late afternoon, when the light softens over the water and the terraces are yours. In the high summer months this format is not offered, and the villa is booked only in its entirety.

The whole villa, for fifty guests and more. From fifty guests, Villa Cipressi is taken over entirely for a minimum of two nights. All thirty-one rooms are yours, sleeping up to seventy-two, breakfast included every morning, and the botanical garden is closed to the public from four in the afternoon on the day you arrive until ten on the morning you leave. That is the old-money weekend in its purest form: your families at breakfast on the terrace, a garden with no one in it but your guests, and Varenna a few steps beyond the gate.

Between the two there is no awkward middle: under fifty, the terraces; fifty and over, the house.

May, June, September and early October. In July and August the villa hosts weddings only when it is taken over entirely, from fifty guests.

Time the ceremony to the garden, not the clock. On a terrace wedding the botanical garden is open to visitors during the day. A ceremony in the late afternoon gives you the terraces at their quietest and the light at its softest over the water.

Let the palette be quiet. The garden is already green, stone and water. White, ivory, powder pink and beige look extraordinary against it; bright colours fight it. Nelli and Stas's old-money palette is the reason their photographs look timeless.

Give the evening one moment of theatre. Restraint makes a single gesture stand out: a prosecco tower to open the aperitivo, a first dance that is not a waltz, a quartet that switches to jazz as the light goes.

Plan the walk down. The terraces are linked by steps. They are beautiful and they are steps, so we plan the order of the evening around older guests, and keep a helping hand at every level.

Use Varenna. A welcome drink in the village the night before, a ferry to Bellagio the day after: the village is half of the experience, and your guests will remember it.

Nelli and Stas, and the team

On the twelfth of October 2023, Nelli and Stas married at Villa Cipressi in the old-money style: a palette of white, powder pink and beige, the men in classic black, and elegance in every detail. Their symbolic ceremony took place in the botanical garden with the lake behind them, led by a close friend. Afterwards they opened the aperitivo by pouring a prosecco tower to music from The Great Gatsby, walked down to the water for portraits while their guests relaxed on the terraces, and ended the evening not with a waltz but with a tango, Nelli in a fitted red dress, complete with lifts. As Nelli told us afterwards, the experience showed them that even the boldest dreams can come true.

Katerina takes your first call. She lives on Lake Como, a short drive from Varenna, and trained in hospitality and hotels before joining us. Laura handles the venue and the production. Svetlana runs the client side and, trained as a psychologist, is the calm voice on the day. Marina answers the first enquiries and sets what we will and will not take on.

Two of us are on the ground for the whole wedding, not one. When it rained at a wedding of ours, our team took the umbrellas to the guests and stood in the rain ourselves. Your job that day is to get married. Ours is everything else.