Vineyard Estate
Working wine estate, cellar dinners, harvest light
A family that has made wine for four generations, a barrel cellar you can eat in, and a terrace looking down rows of vine. Warm rather than grand, and the best value of the six.
Best for: wine-lovers, autumn dates, 40–120 guests
Palladian Villa
Frescoed rooms, formal gardens, ballroom capacity
Sixteenth-century architecture built for exactly this: arriving guests, long tables, dancing in a room with a painted ceiling. Where you go when the guest list is genuinely large.
Best for: 100–250 guests, formal occasions, spring
Lagoon Palazzo
Venetian palace, arrival by boat, water and marble
A private palace on the water, guests arriving by boat, and photographs nowhere else on earth can produce. Small numbers only, and worth every complication.
Best for: under 150 guests, winter light, big budgets
Lakefront Villa
Terraces over the water, mountains behind, boats
A villa with its own water frontage on Lake Garda: aperitivo on the terrace, dinner under the pergola, and a boat for the two of you at the end of it.
Best for: summer, 50–180 guests, guests who'll make a holiday of it
Hilltop Castle
Ramparts, courtyards, a village underneath
Stone, height and a view over the whole valley — usually with rooms inside it, so the wedding party never has to drive anywhere. Cheaper than it looks in the photographs.
Best for: whole-weekend weddings, autumn, 60–250 guests
Countryside Borgo
A hamlet you take over entirely, for three days
An entire restored village — houses, chapel, pool, kitchen — rented exclusively so that everyone you love sleeps a hundred metres from dinner. The three-day wedding in its natural form.
Best for: exclusive use, 60–200 guests, families travelling far