REAL WEDDINGS / ITALY
Couture, Culture & Lake Como: Mahsa and Bam at Villa Erba
A couture-filled Lake Como celebration at Villa Erba, bringing together Persian tradition, Italian hospitality, and American energy.
Photography & Submission
Vlasta Weddings (@vlasta.weddings)
Photography by Vlasta Weddings
Some weddings borrow from beautiful places. This one was built from three entirely different worlds – and somehow made them feel like one.
Mahsa Vazin and Bam Azizi spent nearly two years planning their Villa Erba celebration, and the length of that preparation shows in every detail. Not in the way that over-planned weddings can feel over-managed, but in the way that only happens when a couple knows exactly who they are and commits fully to expressing it. Persian heritage. A Californian life. A deep, personal relationship with couture. Italy as the canvas. The result was a wedding that felt less like a destination event and more like a portrait of two people.
Couture in the Making
Fashion was not an afterthought here – it was a primary language. Mahsa wore a handmade Dolce & Gabbana Alta Moda couture gown created specifically for her, while Bam wore Alta Sartoria. Both are avid couture collectors, and their wardrobe across the day — multiple outfit changes drawing from Dolce & Gabbana archival pieces and Dior — gave the celebration an editorial quality that most weddings never approach. These were not simply beautiful clothes worn for the occasion. They were one-of-one pieces that carried the couple’s identity as clearly as any spoken word in the ceremony. The preparation photographs move between objects and workmanship, texture and silhouette, personal ritual and quiet anticipation — treating couture as the story it actually was.
A Persian Ceremony at Villa Erba
The ceremony unfolded outdoors at Villa Erba, the sofreh aghd arranged before the couple against a backdrop of historic Italian architecture and the green edge of Lake Como. The sofreh — the elaborate ceremonial spread central to Persian weddings — is a profoundly intentional object: every element on it carries meaning, from the mirror and candelabras symbolising a bright future, to the herbs representing prosperity, to the honey shared between the couple as a promise of sweetness. Here, it sat beneath the open Italian sky, surrounded by family and friends who had travelled from across the world to be present. Persian tradition, Italian hospitality and the particular warmth of people who love each other across cultures and continents — the ceremony carried all of it, and felt none the heavier for it.
Portraits Across Lake Como
After the ceremony, portraits began beside a classic car before moving onto the lake aboard a Riva. There is something about Lake Como that resists being merely decorative — its scale, its light, the way the mountains frame the water — and the portraits across this chapter use it fully. Villa Erba’s formal architecture, the open lake, and the people closest to Mahsa and Bam gave each setting a distinct quality without interrupting the natural progression of the afternoon.
The Reception Before the Doors Opened
Inside Villa Erba, the reception is shown before guests enter. Empty-room views, place settings, florals and candlelight reveal what has been built before it is inhabited. It is a compositional choice that rewards attention — the historic rooms in their completed, undisturbed state carry a quality of anticipation that disappears once the celebration fills them. Giving these details their own chapter is an act of editorial restraint that lets the transformation register on its own terms.
Champagne, Entrance and Dinner
In the last of the afternoon light, Mahsa and Bam marked the transition to evening with a champagne tower pour on the lake-facing terrace. The entrance that followed — white napkins rising from every table as the couple arrived — brought American, Persian and Italian energies into one room simultaneously. It is the kind of moment that only works when a celebration has earned it.
Cake, Music and the Dance Floor
The final chapter begins with cake and fireworks before the room turns entirely toward music and dancing. Legendary Iranian-American artist Andy Madadian flew from Los Angeles to perform during the evening — a gesture that required no explanation to anyone in the room who grew up listening to him, and that gave the celebration a depth of cultural meaning no décor detail could replicate. Ellis and his band, who had also performed at the wedding of Mahsa’s sister, brought their own extraordinary energy to the ceremony and evening. The performances, the percussion, the late-night wardrobe changes, the portraits between dance-floor moments — by the time the night closed, the different influences that had shaped the day read as a single, coherent experience.
Couture and sofreh. Lake Como and Los Angeles. Persian music under an Italian sky. A celebration that was entirely its own.
The Team
Every professional who shaped this story, listed by role.
Venue
Villa Erba
Photography
Bridal Fashion
Dolce & Gabbana Alta Moda, Dior
Groom's Fashion
D&G Alta Sartoria
Entertainment
Andy Madadian, Ellis and his band