A nineteenth-century villa on the water at Laglio, on the quiet western shore of Lake Como, booked for you alone. Six suites, a pool garden hanging above the lake, a private dock and a stone terrace where dinner happens with the water below. The opposite shore is about six hundred and fifty metres away, which is why the view here reads as intimate rather than panoramic.
It carries the name of Theodelinda, the Lombard queen who shaped this region in the early Middle Ages, and inside it behaves like a family house rather than a hotel. Every suite is decorated differently. Laglio is the village George Clooney made famous, and it is quieter than that fact suggests.
We married a couple here in July 2025, forty guests. The photographs and the film on this page are from that wedding.
capacity
The thing to understand first
The villa belongs to the caterer. Sunlake own this house and cook in it, which inverts the usual arrangement and is the main reason we bring couples here.
At most Italian villas an exclusive caterer is a constraint you accept: the venue rents you the walls, the kitchen is a separate company with separate incentives, and everything that falls between them becomes the planner's problem at eleven at night. Here they are the same people. The team that quotes your menu owns the terrace it will be served on, has cooked in that kitchen a hundred times, and cannot blame anyone else if the timing slips.
In practice that shows up as fewer moving parts and better food. We have never had a difficult conversation with them, which over eleven years in Italy is rarer than it should be.
The trade is real and we will name it: you cannot bring your own caterer, your own cake or your own wine, and there is no corkage that makes it possible. If choosing your own kitchen matters more to you than how the evening runs, this is the wrong villa and we will say so.
One day, or two
The villa comes with the night. Check in from one in the afternoon, the wedding, sleep in the suites, breakfast, out by eleven the next morning. That is the standard booking and it already includes what most Lake Como villas charge extra for.
A second day is possible, and it is a real decision rather than an add-on. You can stay a second night only if you book a second catered event, usually a pizza party by the lake with a wood-fired oven, or a brunch. The villa does not let you simply linger: no second event, no second night.
It is also the most expensive second day among the villas we work with, because the day after carries the full exclusive-use fee again, on top of the catering for it. We would rather you hear that from us now than discover it in the estimate.
Our own view. At thirty guests the one-day version is the better buy and the evening does not feel short. From forty-five or fifty upwards, when people have flown in from three countries, the second day is what turns the wedding into the weekend they remember.
One scheduling fact that catches American couples. Saturdays here require a minimum of fifty guests. A wedding of twenty or thirty is welcome any other day of the week, and a Thursday in June on this lake is not a compromise.
at a glance
At a glance
20guests at the least
50where it is at its best
60and not one more
Budget level: €60,000 to €150,000budget level
Where
Via Vecchia Regina 58, Laglio, western shore of Lake Como
Como
About 30 minutes. Cernobbio about 20
Airports
Roughly 1 hour 30 from Malpensa, Linate and Bergamo
Season
April to October only
Guests
20 to 60. Sixty is the recommended maximum, and indoors it is tight
Saturday
Minimum 50 guests. Any other day, from 20
Booking includes
Exclusive use, six suites, breakfast for up to 12, one night
Check in and out
From 1 pm, out by 11 am
Second night
Only with a second catered event
Sleeping on site
12 with breakfast included, up to 24 across the six suites
Ceremony
Symbolic or a blessing at the villa. Civil at Laglio town hall, ten minutes on foot
Ceremony spot
Pool garden above the lake, or the upper terrace by the entrance
Dinner
Stone terrace and the front of the villa. A retractable roof covers the terrace
Rain plan
The salon on the ground floor. No tent, and no room for one
Catering
Sunlake, who own the villa. Exclusive, including for the smallest weddings
Music
Blunotte are the house supplier. Outdoors until 8 pm, indoors until 11 pm
Event ends
11 pm. Possibly midnight indoors, to be confirmed per date
Dock
Private, included. One water taxi at a time
Parking
About 15 cars. Minivans yes, a full coach can drop off but not park
Pool
Swimming on the wedding day with a lifeguard, at extra cost. Not heated
Lift
None
Children and pets
Both welcome
the villa
The spaces, from the dock to the suites
The dock. Private, included in the rental, and the reason to arrive by classic wooden boat rather than by car. One boat moors at a time, so this is for the couple and small groups rather than for fifty people arriving at once. It is ten to twenty metres from the dock up to the pool garden.
The pool garden. The lower garden, with the pool and the lake straight below it. This is where the ceremony happens, with seventy white iron chairs that come with the set-up. There are steps down to it, which matters for anyone who cannot manage them.
The upper terrace. By the entrance, framed by trees. The alternative ceremony spot for a smaller group, and where the aperitivo usually goes.
The stone terrace and the front of the villa. Dinner, round or imperial tables, the lake below. The terrace has a retractable roof, which is this villa's quiet advantage: moderate rain does not move your dinner anywhere.
The salon. One large room on the ground floor. The party and the dancing live here after eight, and it is the full wet-weather plan. It seats sixty, and at sixty it is tight. There are two women's and two men's cubicles off it, and a manager's office that we use for musicians, photographers and the staff.
Tables cannot be set down by the water. The kitchen is too far and the stairs make it unsafe, and we would rather tell you that before you fall in love with a photograph of it.
rooms
Where your guests sleep
Six suites, each decorated differently, with the best one on the second floor to the right at the top of the stairs: a lake view and the one we give the couple.
The rental includes beds for twelve guests with breakfast. The suites can actually take up to twenty-four, four to a suite, and additional guests are charged per person per night. Laglio adds a tourist tax of €5 per person per night, paid at check-out.
Cleaning, pool towels and Wi-Fi are included. There are no kitchens in the suites, whatever some listing sites say. There is no lift.
Everyone else stays nearby, and the honest first recommendation is Relais Villa Vittoria, which is immediately next door and which we also plan weddings at. Laglio, Cernobbio and Como have the rest. Guest transfers have to be arranged in advance: the local authorities ask for organised shuttles or boats rather than forty cars on a narrow lakeside road, and we treat that as a rule rather than a suggestion.
the days
The day, and the eight o'clock rule
The venue service runs seven hours and the event ends at eleven. Within that, the day looks like this.
Check in from one, getting ready in the suites with the lake in the window. Welcome drink by the water as guests arrive. Ceremony in the pool garden in the late afternoon. Aperitivo on the upper terrace with finger food, an Italian fried corner and a show-cooking buffet of Parma ham, Lake Como mountain cheeses and burrata. Seated dinner on the stone terrace. The cake and a Prosecco magnum. Then everyone moves inside for the open bar and the dancing.
And here is the constraint that shapes everything: outdoor music stops at eight. Not eleven, not half past nine. Eight. After that all music is in the salon on the ground floor, until eleven.
That is the earliest curfew of any villa we work with on this lake, and it is not negotiable, because Laglio is a village of houses and the villa keeps its licence by respecting it. Extending to midnight indoors has been possible before and has to be checked for your specific date.
What it means in practice is that the ceremony, the aperitivo and dinner all have to happen before eight, and then the evening changes rooms. Done well, walking sixty people from a terrace at dusk into a candlelit salon is one of the better moments of a wedding. Done badly, dinner overruns, the move feels like an eviction, and the party never recovers. This is the single thing we think hardest about when we build a timeline here, and it is the main reason we would rather plan this villa than hand it to someone planning it for the first time.
Fireworks are not allowed, for the same noise reason. Sparklers, candles, smoke machines and drones are fine until eight; after that the village gets quiet.
ceremony
The ceremony, and what Italy requires
At the villa the ceremony is symbolic, or a blessing. Villa Regina Teodolinda is not a Casa Comunale, so nothing signed here is legally binding, and anyone telling you otherwise is wrong.
The legal wedding happens at Laglio town hall, which is ten minutes on foot and one minute by car from the villa, so both can happen on the same day without anybody rushing. The town hall charges a municipal fee, which we confirm for your date. We prepare the Nulla Osta, the translations and the apostilles, book the hall and bring the interpreter the law requires.
A catholic ceremony has to happen in a church, not in the garden, and the file takes six months through your parish, your diocese and the Italian diocese.
Where the ceremony goes. The pool garden above the lake is the usual answer, with seventy white chairs included in the set-up. The upper terrace by the entrance is the alternative for a smaller group. Sixty guests is the comfortable ceiling in both.
One practical thing nobody mentions in the brochures: there is no shade at the pool between four and six in the afternoon. For a July ceremony we order parasols in advance or we move the ceremony later. It is a small detail that decides whether your guests remember the view or the sun.
season
Season and availability
April to October, and nothing outside it. May, June and September are the best of it. April and October are cheaper and can be wet, and early October on this lake is genuinely beautiful, with evenings still warm enough to sit out.
Saturdays need fifty guests. For a smaller wedding a Thursday or a Sunday is not a compromise, it is the better day. Book at least a year ahead for the good dates; the best of them go earlier.
plan b
If it rains
If it rains, this villa has one real advantage and one real limitation.
The advantage is the retractable roof over the dinner terrace. Moderate rain does not move your dinner anywhere, which at a villa with no room for a marquee is worth a great deal. In light rain the ceremony still happens outside.
The limitation is that there is nowhere to put a tent. In heavy rain the ceremony and the dinner both move into the salon, which holds the same sixty guests but is a different evening from the one on the terrace. There is no third option and no marquee to hire, and we would rather you know that than assume a tent can appear.
The decision is made on the day, before Sunlake start setting the tables. We make it together, with the forecast open.
table and music
The table
Sunlake cook here because they own the place, and the menu is theirs end to end: the welcome drink, an aperitivo of six finger foods chosen by you, the fried Italian corner, the show-cooking buffet, a seated dinner of a first and a main course, a one-tier cake and a Prosecco magnum for the toast. Wine at the table comes from Piedmont, Tuscany, Veneto and Lombardy, with a top list and a special selection if you want to go further.
Vegetarian and vegan dishes sit on the standard menu. Halal, kosher and gluten-free are all handled, and the chef prepares alternatives for allergies when they are shared in advance. They are honest that in a working kitchen they cannot guarantee zero cross-contamination, so serious allergies are a conversation we have early rather than a box we tick.
A tasting for the two of you is charged and then credited against your final bill, which is unusually fair and worth doing. Most Lake Como villas do not offer one at all.
The extras that couples actually take: a starter before the pasta, a dessert buffet with cannoli and tiramisù, a vintage gelato cart or an Ape car, a mixologist bar, and the mozzarella station on the second day, made in front of your guests.
What you cannot do: bring your own cake, your own baker, your own wine or your own spirits. There is no corkage. That is the price of the arrangement that makes everything else work.
Music is Blunotte, the house supplier: string quartets with players from La Scala, piano and cello, three tenors who appear during dinner, jazz, Italian folk and DJs. In our experience bringing your own DJ has been possible without a surcharge, which we confirm for your date rather than promise here. SIAE, the Italian performing-rights fee, is paid by the couple or the musician.
budget
What your budget looks like
Budget level: €60,000 to €150,000
●○○ The wedding, with the night included. The lower band, €60,000 to €90,000, for everything: exclusive use of the villa, the six suites, breakfast, the Sunlake table, every supplier, Italian taxes and our work. Thirty guests sits there comfortably. At fifty you are crossing into the middle band.
●●○ Two days, with a pizza party by the lake. The middle band, €90,000 to €150,000. The jump is large and honest: a second day carries the full exclusive-use fee again, not just the catering.
At Teodolinda the decision that moves your number most is not the guest list but whether you take the second day.
Where this villa is unusually good value. The night, the six suites and breakfast are inside the price rather than beside it. Compare that to a villa where you rent the walls for the afternoon and then book twelve hotel rooms, and the arithmetic changes. It is the reason we put couples who want the old-money look and a sensible budget here rather than somewhere grander on the same shore.
What the number covers
Planning, design and coordination from the first call to the last transfer, with two coordinators on the wedding day
Exclusive use of the villa, the six suites and breakfast for twelve
The Sunlake table: welcome drink, aperitivo, show-cooking buffet, seated dinner, cake and the Prosecco toast
Symbolic ceremony in the pool garden
Photographer, film, flowers and decor, hair and makeup, music
Transfers by minivan and boat, and every Italian tax and fee, stated from the start
What it does not cover
Flights, what you wear, the rings, rooms for guests beyond the twelve, the Laglio tourist tax, and the genuinely optional, from the gelato cart to a lifeguard if you want the pool open.
Every wedding is costed individually. You get a line-by-line estimate for your date after the first call.
honest limits
What we would not do here
01
We would not bring seventy guests.
Sixty is the recommended maximum and the indoor salon seats sixty tightly. The seventy you may read elsewhere is the number of ceremony chairs, not places at dinner.
02
We would not plan a Saturday for thirty guests.
Saturdays require fifty. A Thursday or a Sunday costs less and is, for a wedding of this size, simply better.
03
We would not promise dancing under the stars.
Outdoor music ends at eight. If an open-air party past midnight is the picture in your head, this is the wrong villa and we will show you the right one.
04
We would not put the ceremony at the pool at four in July without parasols.
No shade, and the chairs face the sun.
05
We would not promise a wheelchair route to the ceremony.
Dinner is reachable. The pool garden has steps and no lift exists in the villa.
06
We would not assume a tent can save a wet day.
There is no space for one. Heavy rain means the salon, and that is the whole plan.
07
We would not book a coach.
Fifteen parking spaces, a narrow lakeside road, and local authorities who expect organised transfers. Minivans and boats, planned early.
08
We would not book it for an elopement.
The villa does not take bookings without catering, and the catering minimum is twenty-five adults.
our part
What we carry
Sunlake give you the house, the kitchen and the staff. Everything that turns a beautiful villa into your wedding sits outside that, and it sits in Italian.
Katerina lives on Lake Como and knows this villa best. Her own line about it is that for weddings up to sixty it has the best value for money on the lake, because of the suites inside the price and because of who is cooking.
The booking. Dates, the rental, the Sunlake contract, the deposit and the security deposit.
The paperwork. Nulla Osta, translations, apostilles, Laglio town hall and the interpreter, and the six-month church file if you want one.
The timeline. Which here means designing the move indoors at eight so that it reads as the evening changing gear, not ending.
The suppliers. Your own florist, photographer, videographer and stylist are all welcome, and they are ours to find and brief. Music through Blunotte.
Your guests. Hotels around Laglio starting with Relais Villa Vittoria next door, minivans and boats booked in advance as the authorities require, and the parasols nobody remembers until July.
The day. Two coordinators, from set-up to the last song in the salon.
Where the money goes. At this villa the lever is the second day, not the flowers and not the guest count. We will tell you honestly whether your particular group will use it.
We take a limited number of weddings each season.
photos
More from Villa Regina Teodolinda
our weddings here
We have planned weddings in this house
Elizaveta and Gennadiy
July 2025, forty guests, a classic format with a symbolic ceremony and a host. The wedding that taught us the eight o’clock timeline rather than reading about it.
From our very first video call with Marina, Sveta and Katya, we instantly clicked. Detailed checklists and budget spreadsheets, a shared space with every document, and they guided us through the paperwork for our legal ceremony and the visas for us and our guests. When we arrived at the villa on our wedding day the magic was already happening, and everything ran smoothly without us having to worry about a thing.
How much does a wedding at Villa Regina Teodolinda cost?
The wedding with the night at the villa included sits in the lower band, €60,000 to €90,000, at around thirty guests. Two days with a pizza party, or fifty guests and more, sit between €90,000 and €150,000. Both cover the villa, the suites, the Sunlake table, every supplier, Italian taxes and our work. A line-by-line estimate follows the first call.
Where is it?
Via Vecchia Regina 58, Laglio, on the western shore of Lake Como. Thirty minutes from Como, about an hour and a half from Malpensa, Linate or Bergamo.
How many guests?
Twenty to sixty. Sixty is the recommended maximum and indoors it is a squeeze. On Saturdays the minimum is fifty.
Do we get the villa to ourselves?
Yes, every wedding booking is exclusive use, and it includes the night: check in from 1 pm, out by 11 am.
Can our guests sleep there?
Twelve with breakfast included, up to twenty-four across the six suites. Extra guests are charged per night, plus the Laglio tourist tax of €5 per person per night.
Can we stay two nights?
Only if you book a second catered event. The villa does not rent a quiet extra night.
Can we marry legally at the villa?
No. The villa is not a Casa Comunale. The civil ceremony is at Laglio town hall, ten minutes on foot, and can be the same day. At the villa the ceremony is symbolic or a blessing.
Can we have a catholic ceremony?
In a church, not in the garden, and allow six months for the paperwork.
Until what time can we party?
Outdoor music until 8 pm, indoors until 11 pm, and the event ends at 11 pm. Midnight indoors has been possible and we check it for your date.
Can we bring our own DJ?
In our experience yes, alongside Blunotte and without a surcharge, but we confirm it for your date rather than promise it here.
Can we choose our own caterer?
No. Sunlake own the villa and cook everything, including for the smallest weddings.
Can we bring our own cake or wine?
No, and there is no corkage.
Is there a tasting?
Yes, for the couple. It is charged and then credited against your final bill.
Can we arrive by boat?
Yes. The dock is private and included, one boat at a time, so it is for the couple and small groups rather than everyone at once.
What happens if it rains?
Moderate rain is covered: the dinner terrace has a retractable roof. Heavy rain moves the ceremony and dinner into the salon, which seats the same sixty. There is no tent and no space for one.
Can guests swim in the pool?
On the wedding day, yes, with a lifeguard at extra cost. It is not heated.
Are fireworks allowed?
No, the noise rules forbid them. Sparklers, candles, smoke and drones are fine until eight.
Can we bring children and dogs?
Both are welcome.
Is it accessible?
Dinner is reachable. The ceremony area at the pool has steps, and there is no lift in the villa.
Can we book it for an elopement, just the two of us?
No. The villa does not take bookings without catering, and the catering minimum is twenty-five adults.
When should we book?
At least a year ahead for the good dates, and the best of them go earlier.
Why not book the villa ourselves?
You can. Sunlake will give you the house and the dinner. The paperwork, the design, the eight o'clock timeline, the transfers the authorities require, the hotels and the day itself are the rest of the wedding.
first step
Let's see whether it is yours
Marina, who founded WOWITALY, answers every inquiry herself. The first video call is with Katerina, it costs nothing, and it is not a sales call.
Tell us your date, how many people you want around you, and what you would like your guests to say about it afterwards. That last one tells us more than the budget does.
We will check the date with Sunlake and set up a call. On it you get our honest read on whether a villa where the music moves indoors at eight suits your particular group, real numbers for your date, and, if it does not, the two or three on this lake that do.
A cardinal's villa on the western shore of Lake Como, restored by Jacques Garcia and made famous by House of Gucci. Three ways to marry here, and the real numbers for each.
A country estate in the hills above Bellagio that feels like Tuscany, a garden table for up to forty with the whole lake below, and a kitchen our own Katerina chose for her wedding.
Prices updated October 2026 · by Katerina
