What does “exclusive use” mean for a villa wedding?
Exclusive use means the estate is yours alone for your wedding: no other event, no other party sharing the house or grounds, and no strangers passing through. You have the villa and its gardens to yourselves for the agreed period.
Exclusive use is the difference between hosting your wedding in a place and hosting it alongside other people's. When an estate is taken exclusively, the house, the gardens and the setting belong to your day alone. There is no second event in the next room, no public visitors, and no sense of sharing the property with anyone outside your celebration.
For a wedding, that privacy is most of the point. It is what lets the day move at its own pace, from the ceremony through dinner and into the evening, without being timed around anyone else. Both of our estates, Villa Revel Parravicini and Villa Parravicino Sossnovsky, are taken on an exclusive-use basis.
Why do couples choose an exclusive-use estate?
For privacy, for a day that runs on its own timing, and for the feeling of a home rather than a venue. A family estate taken exclusively belongs to the couple for the day, which is hard to reproduce in a shared or commercial space.
The appeal is partly practical and partly a feeling. Practically, exclusive use removes the constraints of a shared venue: no fixed turnaround for the next party, no shared entrance, no compromise on where you can be and when. The grounds are yours for photographs, for quiet moments, and for guests to wander.
The feeling is harder to name. A family home opened for a single wedding carries something a hall for hire does not. It is the difference our couples tend to describe most often, and it sits behind the choice between our two villas that we set out in Villa Revel or Villa Parravicino.
What exclusive-use hire generally includes
Exactly what is included varies by estate, by season and by your plans, so treat this as the shape of a conversation rather than a fixed list, and ask us for the current detail for your date:
- Sole use of the house and its gardens for the agreed period, with no other event.
- The setting for the ceremony, the reception and the evening, within one property.
- Space for photography across the grounds, without the public present.
- The freedom to plan the day’s timing around you rather than a shared schedule.
What is usually not included, and should be planned separately?
Catering, planning, flowers, music, photography and similar services are usually arranged separately, either through independent suppliers you choose or people we can introduce. Exactly what sits inside the hire and what sits outside it differs by estate, so confirm it with us.
Most estates hire the setting rather than a full turnkey package, which is what keeps a wedding personal: you bring the caterer, the planner and the suppliers who suit you. We are glad to introduce independent people we have enjoyed working with, but you are never obliged to use them, and we take no commission.
Costs follow the same logic, with the villa on one side and your chosen suppliers on the other. We keep our hire "on request" rather than published, and we set out how the wider budget tends to break down in our guide to Lake Como wedding cost.
How do we find out exactly what is included at each villa?
Ask us for your date. The precise inclusions, capacities and arrangements differ between Villa Revel and Villa Parravicino and are best confirmed directly, so we can tell you what applies to your day rather than a general figure.
Because the two estates are different in size and character, the specifics differ too, and they are the kind of thing best answered for a real date rather than in the abstract. Tell us when you are thinking of marrying and roughly how many guests you expect, and we will tell you what taking each villa exclusively involves.
If you are still choosing between the lake and the hills, start with Villa Revel or Villa Parravicino, and if a legally binding ceremony on-site matters to you, our guide to getting legally married in Italy explains where that is possible.
