Borgo Tre Rose wedding

Borgo Tre Rose is a medieval hamlet of the twelfth century at Valiano, on the Montepulciano side of the Valdichiana, a few kilometres from Cortona.

Six buildings in the Tuscan style, restored to their old shape, sit among gardens with an outdoor pool and a tennis court. Around them run 103 hectares of olive groves and vineyards belonging to Tenuta Tre Rose, the neighbouring winery.

That winery makes Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. Its old cellars date to the eighteenth century, and the guided tour comes with the story of a cardinal’s secret passage.

Lake Trasimeno is over the border in Umbria.

A Borgo Tre Rose wedding stays inside the hamlet from the ceremony to the last dance, and the evening moves between the gardens, the pool and the terrace.

The hotel’s restaurant and the covered terrace beside it, looking out over the valley, seat 110 between them, and the stone-walled restaurant room seats 100 on its own. This is where we put the Borgo Tre Rose wedding dinner when the night is uncertain, because the roof is already there.

In summer the reception can be set beside the pool, facing the meadows and the vineyards. We use it for the aperitivo, with the light still on the hills.

A large open space framed by cypresses and the hills, where the hotel rents tunnels of fairy lights over the tables. A long dinner outside belongs here.

The indoor room for the ceremony when it rains, and with the covered terrace and the restaurant room it makes up the wet-weather plan.

A Borgo Tre Rose wedding starts from €150,000, and for optimal results we recommend budgeting €250,000 all-in for 60 to 100 guests.

A weekend wedding takes the whole hotel for two nights at least, from just over €13,000 to just under €22,000 for the two nights depending on the dates, with breakfast included. July and August are the highest-priced months.

• Wedding menu, from €140 a head: appetiser buffet, two first courses, a main course with a side
• Pizza party €56, pasta party €48, barbecue €64, wine-tasting apericena €65
• A light lunch on the wedding day €42, a late-night snack from €15
• A departure brunch from €38

Bread, linen, round tables, white-dressed chairs, glassware and cutlery are included with the wedding menu. A themed dinner served outdoors carries a €20 supplement a head.

A symbolic celebrant from €800, a civil celebrant from €1,000, and a church contribution from €500 for a religious ceremony. Each hour of music past midnight is €400, and a silent disco starts at €700.

The flowers, the photographer, the band or DJ, the transfers and the lighting design. Food and drink are the hotel’s alone, and the fairy lights, the open bar and the wedding cake come from the hotel too.

Outdoor music stops at midnight.

After that a Borgo Tre Rose wedding has two ways on: a silent disco outside, or an indoor room at a reduced volume that the management sets. Each hour past midnight is €400, and the party ends at half past two.

We prefer the silent disco every time. The floor keeps dancing under the sky, the people who want to talk can hear each other, and the valley stays quiet.

The DJ is briefed for headphones when the booking is made, not at one in the morning.

Thirty-six rooms, seventy-two guests in them, and a hundred and one with the extra beds.

The rooms are garden-view and hill-view doubles, junior suites and suites, with three smaller garden-view doubles, and a sweet and savoury buffet breakfast is included. Up to 29 extra beds can be added at €53 a night, and cots for children under three are free.

Check-in is at two and check-out at ten, with a late check-out to midday at €28 a room. After a party that ends at half past two, we buy it for the whole hotel.

The hamlet is at Valiano, in the comune of Montepulciano, in the province of Siena, on the eastern edge of Tuscany.

Montepulciano and Cortona are both close, and Perugia, Assisi and Lake Trasimeno are nearer than Florence, so the wedding week reaches into Umbria as easily as into Tuscany.

Perugia airport is 59 minutes away, which is unusual for a Tuscan venue and useful, with European flights and a short drive. Rome Fiumicino is two hours and 51 and the better long-haul arrival.

Florence Peretola is an hour and 36, Florence city centre an hour and 25, Siena an hour and four, and Pisa two hours and 37.

A hotel taken whole has its own rules, and at Borgo Tre Rose they shape the budget early.

One meal a day, every day.

Taking the whole hotel means most of the guests eat at least one meal a day there for the whole stay, the wedding dinner counting as one. We build a welcome dinner and a lunch around that from the start, so the second night is a pizza party by the pool rather than an obligation.

The number is set a week out.

The final guest count is due seven days before the wedding and can move by three per cent at most, and on a whole-hotel stay a lower count does not lower the total. We set the list realistically at the contract stage.

The tasting is the rehearsal.

Once the date is booked, the hotel gives the couple a lunch or dinner tasting four dishes, with the sommelier pairing the wines. We fix the menu and the drinks for every night of the stay at that table.

Magic Day plans weddings at Borgo Tre Rose from the first conversation to the final farewell, for 50 guests or for 110. The hotel provides the rooms, the restaurant, the kitchen and the bar for the length of the buyout, and every plate and every drink comes from it. Everything else falls to the planner: the ceremony and its paperwork with the comune, the flowers, the photographer, the band and the DJ, the silent disco, the transfers from Perugia or Rome, and the hotels nearby for the guests the rooms cannot take.

What we know from working the hamlet is the shape of its night. Dinner on the terrace or under the lights, the move to headphones at midnight, the last song at half past two, and every hour past twelve priced before the evening. We also know the meal plan runs every day of the stay, and that the guest count is fixed a week before.

Tell us the dates you are considering and how many people are coming, and we will tell you what the nights come to.