Elopements are no longer viewed as a “smaller version of a big wedding.” Nowadays, they’ve become a genre of their own. This is exactly the space in which Leoeventi operates, turning intimacy into an aesthetic and stripping away the noise so the day can return to what matters most: presence.
For Daisy and Oliver, an elopement on Lake Como became exactly that kind of freedom. They turned their wedding into a personal festival: golf in Menaggio, an Italian cooking class, spa days, lingering dinners, and quiet morning preparations at The Grand Hotel Tremezzo. Their intimate ceremony at Villa del Balbianello proved that stepping away from scale does not mean sacrificing beauty. If anything, couples today invest more deeply in location, light, atmosphere, styling and photography, creating weddings of intention.
Location: Lake Como, Italy
Style: Intimate, Classic, Refined
Time of planning: 18 months
Setting: Hotel
Season: Summer
Daisy and Oliver met at work and recognised each other immediately. When Oliver proposed during a helicopter flight over Manhattan, the setting was dramatic, yet the feeling that stuck with them was surprisingly calm. Daisy describes it as “the beginning of our forever”, a private decision made thousands of feet above a city built on noise. From the start they knew they wanted an elopement. No guests, no timetable politics, no performance. Just two people and a place worthy of the commitment.
Vision of the Day
The brief for Leoeventi was simple and demanding at once. An intimate ceremony that felt sacred rather than secret. A setting that looked timeless in photographs, yet emotionally present. The aesthetic language followed the same logic. Classic, romantic, highly edited. No trends for the sake of trends, only choices that would still feel like them years from now.
Lake Como supported that vision effortlessly. The region has become a magnet for modern elopements, valued not for spectacle but for refinement: soft weather, cinematic light, natural architecture and landscapes that require almost no embellishment. Couples increasingly choose it for the balance it offers between ease and editorial beauty, where a ceremony framed by water and stone can feel more profound than any ballroom.
Location
The day opened at Grand Hotel Tremezzo, an Art Nouveau icon on the lake’s shore, recognisable for its orange-and-white striped loungers and umbrellas that have become a visual shorthand for joyful Como summers. For the ceremony, they crossed the lake to Villa del Balbianello, the eighteenth-century villa set on a wooded promontory that has hosted writers, explorers, and, in recent decades, more than one famous film crew. The gardens are pure geometry and emotion at once, with staircases, clipped hedges, and statues framing the water below.
What makes Villa del Balbianello singular is that it stands on a narrow peninsula that drops into the lake in a series of terraces, accessible exclusively by boat. Its view of the mountains and the lake has appeared on screens around the world. Hollywood directors have long been drawn to it: the terrace famously staged Anakin and Padmé’s kiss in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, as well as their secret wedding at the film’s end. Years later, Casino Royale returned the villa to global icon status when one of the key love scenes between Daniel Craig and Eva Green was filmed in its gardens.
Bride's Morning & Fashion
Hotel’s terraces and salons gave Daisy’s morning a sense of heritage without heaviness. She got dressed, where the interiors lean into rich reds and golds while the windows open to the lake. The gown by Freda Bennet was deliberately uncomplicated with sculpted shoulders, a full skirt, and a low bow at the back.
Jimmy Choo Seada sandals, a Tiffany bangle and a Loquet necklace Oliver had given her for their first Christmas together. Nothing was “for the wedding only”. These were pieces that already belonged to their life and were invited into the ceremony rather than purchased for it.
Hair and makeup by Elena Panzeri followed the same brief. Skin that looks lit from within, soft definition around the eyes, hair that moves in the Como breeze instead of fighting it. “Walking down the aisle, I felt elegant, emotional and completely in love, it was everything I had ever dreamed of,” Daisy recalls.
Groom’s Fashion
Oliver treated his look as a quiet counterpart, not competition. He wore a bespoke navy suit from Scabal, chosen together on a trip to Savile Row. The cut is sharp without aggression, the colour deep enough to ground all that summer light.
Details do the rest. The Yacht-Master Rolex on his wrist. His grandfather’s cufflinks on his sleeves. These objects carry lineage, and in a wedding like this, with no formal speeches or toasts, they become the way family presence appears in the frame.
First Look
The couple chose to see each other for the first time in the gardens of the villa, among the ivy arches, clipped pathways and that saturated Como light that turns every surface into texture. It is a setting that invites stillness, even as everything within the couple moves.
Oliver has told Daisy that when he saw her at the villa, everything else faded. In the images by The Fashion Wedding that is exactly what happens. The background is extraordinary, yet the eye always returns to the two of them.
Ceremony
The ceremony took place on one of the loggias that make the villa so recognisable. Greenery climbed the arches, soft blush and peach florals sat in sculptural arrangements, their tones echoing Daisy’s bouquet and the terracotta hints of the villa itself. The lake stretched behind them, not as a postcard, but as a living backdrop with boats cutting slow white traces across the water.
At Balbianello they broke one of the most persistent wedding choreographies by arriving at the aisle together, hand in hand. For them this was not a statement, simply a natural symbol of the partnership and intimacy they were already living.
The lovebirds describe the experience as magical, then correct themselves. “It felt sacred, peaceful, like time stood still.” There were no guests reacting in real time, yet they did not feel alone. Immediately after the vows, they called their families, sharing tears and laughter across time zones, proof that connection can be immediate even when it is mediated by a screen.
Moments Together
Without a crowd to manage, the day unfolded as a series of planned yet easy movements through the gardens. They wandered stone staircases and clipped lawns, paused beside statues, disappeared into green corridors, then reappeared against open lake vistas.
Instead of posing the couple or interrupting their rhythm, The Fashion Wedding let movement dictate the frame. And because the setting is so inherently cinematic, even the simplest gestures look intentional.
Boat Tour
In the late afternoon, newlyweds traded architecture for open water, boarding a classic wooden boat. It is the perfect last chapter. Not an exit, more a glide into the life that begins once the camera is put away.
Even Daisy’s retro camera, which she brought simply to remember the day in her own way, ended up adding another layer of authorship. She wasn’t just in the story, she was capturing it too. These images close the narrative with a different kind of elegance, not the formal beauty of the villa but a wind-softened version of it, and this is how Daisy and Oliver reframed luxury through an intimate Lake Como elopement.
Advice from the couple:
• Follow your heart and create a day that truly reflects who you are. Keep it simple if that’s what feels right, because marriage isn’t about the size of the wedding, it’s about the life you’re building together. For us, keeping love, commitment and meaning at the centre of it all made our day so special.
WEDDING PLANNING & CELEBRANT Leoeventi | PHOTOGRAPHER The Fashion Wedding | VENUE The Grand Hotel Tremezzo, Villa del Balbianello | FLORAL DESIGN Il Fiorista SNC | MUAH Elena Panzeri | BRIDAL GOWN Freda Bennet | BRIDAL SHOES Jimmy Choo | BRIDAL JEWELRY Tiffany & Co., Loquet London | GROOM’S SUIT Scabal
