Borgo Sant'Ambrogio wedding

Sant’Ambrogio is a small hamlet in the hills at Trequanda, in the country between Siena and the Valdichiana.

It is a private borgo rather than a hotel: a walled courtyard at the centre, a garden for ceremonies, a chapel, a restaurant, a meeting room, a pool and eleven rooms in earth-toned suites through the buildings. The whole of it is taken by one wedding at a time.

Trequanda below is a walled village, and Siena is 55 minutes west.

Five spaces are published with their own capacities, and the courtyard is the one the hire is built around.

The walled heart of the hamlet, holding 150 guests, hired for the wedding day at just under €6,000.

The other 150-guest space, outdoors, and where most ceremonies happen.

Twenty guests, for a small symbolic ceremony or a blessing with only the closest family present.

A hundred seated and sixty respectively, which between them are the covered spaces on the property.

A Borgo Sant’Ambrogio wedding starts from €150,000, and for optimal results we recommend budgeting €250,000 all-in for 80 to 150 guests.

Hire of the private courtyard for the wedding day is just under €6,000, and the whole property has to be rented with it for a minimum of two nights, which brings all eleven rooms. A deposit is taken on confirmation and signature.

The rooms are priced against the dates, and we fix that figure with the estate when the dates are held.

The estate has a catering partner. A caterer from outside it costs just under €2,000 on the wedding day, or €610 for a welcome dinner or a brunch, and a food truck costs nothing at all.

Each hour past two in the morning is €305. Cleaning during a welcome dinner or brunch is €366 a day, and moving furniture on the days before or after the wedding is also €366 a day. A parking attendant is charged separately.

Above 100 guests the estate recommends hiring a gazebo, which is a real budget line rather than a suggestion.

This is the strongest thing about the venue and it is in the brochure in plain terms: outdoor music is allowed until one in the morning, and no time restriction applies to music indoors.

One o’clock outdoors is already late for Tuscany, where midnight is the common answer and ten at night is not unheard of. No indoor limit at all is rarer still.

There is a second clause that makes it better. Extra hours are charged if guests are still in the outdoor or indoor areas after the event officially ends — but not if the only people left are the guests sleeping at the Borgo, with no outside guests present. So once the coaches have gone, the thirty-two people in the rooms can stay up as long as they like without the meter running.

We always design the night in those two phases: a full wedding in the courtyard until one, and then whatever happens afterwards for the people who live there for the weekend.

The fee list carries a line worth acting on: there is no fee for food trucks.

Using a caterer other than the estate’s own partner costs just under €2,000 on the wedding day and €610 for a welcome dinner or brunch. A food truck is free.

That makes the welcome evening and the late-night food obvious. Rather than paying €610 to bring a caterer in for a pizza night, or paying the partner’s rate for something simple, we bring a truck and spend the difference on the wedding dinner itself. For a late-night snack at one in the morning it is also simply the better product.

The wedding dinner is a different decision. There the question is whether a particular kitchen is worth just under €2,000, and for a guest list of 150 that is about thirteen euros a head, which a genuinely better caterer will repay.

The courtyard holds 150 and the Borgo sleeps 32, ten of those in sofa beds.

That is a wide gap, and it is the thing that shapes the logistics. Trequanda is a small village, Sinalunga is the nearest town of any size, and Siena is 55 minutes away. None of those is a short hop, so the coaches here matter more than at a venue half an hour from a city.

One more rule sits alongside it. The estate states that the on-site restaurant is available to guests staying at the Borgo, and that the pool is reserved for Borgo guests except during a scheduled event. The pool rule carries an explicit exception for events; for the restaurant, we agree its use for the wedding with the estate and write it into the contract before a date is held.

The hamlet is at Trequanda, in the province of Siena, in the hills between the Crete Senesi and the Valdichiana.

Siena is 55 minutes and Perugia an hour and 16.

Perugia is the nearest airport at an hour and 16, with Florence Peretola an hour and 32. Rome Fiumicino is two hours and 51 and is usually the better arrival for long-haul guests.

Florence city centre is an hour and 21 and Pisa two hours and 33.

This is the quiet side of Siena province, and the practical consequence is that we plan the accommodation early and the coaches properly: there is no city twenty minutes down the road to absorb a large guest list.

A late curfew, a free food truck, and thirty-two beds against a hundred and fifty seats.

The night runs in two halves.

Outdoor music runs to one and indoor music has no limit, and the hourly charge past two does not apply to guests sleeping at the Borgo. We end the formal wedding at one and let the house party run on for the people in the rooms.

The welcome night is a food truck.

An outside caterer costs €610 for a welcome dinner and a food truck costs nothing. We put the truck on the arrival evening and the late-night snack, and spend the saving on the wedding dinner.

The restaurant is for residents.

The brochure reserves the restaurant for guests staying at the Borgo, and gives the pool an event exception. For a wedding of 150 the restaurant is a covered dining room, so we agree its use for the wedding and write it into the contract.

Thirty-two beds against 150 guests.

Thirty-two beds against 150 guests, in a corner of Siena province with no city nearby. We take rooms in Trequanda, Sinalunga and towards Siena early, and run coaches on both the arrival and the wedding nights.

Magic Day plans weddings at Borgo Sant’Ambrogio from the first conversation to the final farewell. That means the courtyard hire and the two-night property rental priced together with the room rate confirmed in writing, the restaurant’s availability for a privatised wedding settled before any date is held, a gazebo quoted if the list passes 100, a food truck booked for the welcome evening because it carries no fee, an outside caterer weighed against the just-under €2,000 charge for the wedding itself, the night planned to end at one outdoors and continue indoors, rooms blocked towards Siena a year ahead, and coaches run on both evenings.

We have worked Tuscany for years. Tell us the dates you are considering and how many people are coming, and we will tell you what the nights come to.