Getting married in Riva del Garda
Riva del Garda lies at the northern tip of Lake Garda, in Trentino, where the lake narrows between mountains at the edge of the Alps. It is a different Garda from the southern shore: steeper, with the water close to the cliffs and a town that belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1918, when it was still called Reiff am Gartsee. A wedding here has mountains behind the lake and looks like nowhere else on it.
The old town has a medieval fortress, the Rocca, set on the lake behind a canal with a drawbridge and now home to the civic museum, and the Torre Apponale, first mentioned in 1273 and raised to 34 metres in 1555, which overlooks Piazza III Novembre and the harbour. The town hall is the Palazzo Pretorio, from 1375, beside the Palazzo del Provveditore, built between 1472 and 1485, and two of the medieval gates survive: the Porta San Michele from the thirteenth century and the Venetian Porta San Marco. The octagonal baroque church of the Inviolata, with altarpieces by Palma il Giovane, stands on Largo Marconi.
The climate shapes the day: summers are warm but rarely hot, with an afternoon lake breeze that cools the shore and a few late-afternoon thunderstorms. That is good news for a long dress and makes a veil one of the first things to move, so the plan for the hair starts with the breeze.
Wedding makeup artist in Riva del Garda: at a glance
- Artist
- Elena Potapenko, bridal hair and makeup, 18+ years of experience
- Based in
- Veneto, Italy; travels to Riva del Garda for weddings
- Specialty
- Bridal hair and makeup by one artist, with a trial before the day, plus hair and makeup for the mother of the bride and the bridal party
- Languages
- English, Italian, Ukrainian and Russian
- Booking
- Check whether your date is free
Where weddings happen in Riva del Garda
Riva del Garda is one of the few towns on the lake where the commune lists several ceremony settings itself, and each one changes the plan for the morning.
The Municipio and Palazzo Martini
According to the commune’s notice, civil weddings are celebrated in the wedding room on the ground floor of the Municipio and in the frescoed hall on the first floor of Palazzo Martini, an eighteenth-century house now owned by the town. Planners describe the halls on the main floor as decorated with mythological scenes. Ceremonies can last up to forty-five minutes, with thirty minutes before and after for setting up, so the timeline has a fixed frame.
The Rocca and the Parco della Rocca
The commune also lists the ground-floor wedding hall of the Rocca, and ceremonies can take place outdoors in the Parco della Rocca by the lake, where the couple provides its own furnishings. The hall is kept as the fallback if the weather turns. Rice and confetti are allowed outdoors, in the areas next to the halls, not indoors. The park is in open lake light, so the makeup has to be finished for sun and reflection and not for a mirror.
Spiaggia degli Olivi
A beach on the lake, designed in 1934 as a bathing establishment, is on the commune’s list of ceremony places. Planners describe it as romantic and spectacular, with the lake as the backdrop. On a beach the hair needs to be built for wind and the dress for sand, and the plan for the veil is made before the day.
The harbour, the Torre Apponale and the piazza
Piazza III Novembre between the tower and the harbour is where most photographs are taken. The best light is early in the morning and in the hour before sunset, when the stone of the tower and the water take the same warm colour.
These are places where couples marry in Riva del Garda, not a list of Elena’s past jobs. If your ceremony is at a villa or a resort outside the old town, the plan works the same way: write the venue and the time, and the morning is counted back from there.