Castello del Trebbio wedding

Trebbio is a castle on a ridge in the Chianti Rufina, the smallest and highest of the Chianti zones, half an hour east of Florence.

It is a working wine estate before it is a wedding venue. The Chianti Superiore is made here, and the family also farms in the Maremma and in Sardinia. The castle has a walled courtyard, cellars underneath it, and a cluster of villas and farm apartments spread across the land around it.

Pontassieve is down the hill and Florence 29 minutes beyond that.

The estate is sold as a whole rather than as a set of spaces, and the wedding moves through all of it.

The private walled courtyard, given over to the ceremony for two hours with the chairs and the celebrant’s table set.

Eighty seats, given over to the wedding dinner alone, with a terrace and the Rufina hills beyond it.

Underneath the castle, and the setting for the tour and tasting that opens the weekend on the arrival evening.

Houses and farm apartments across the estate sleeping 51, with two or three private pools depending on how many of them a wedding takes.

A Castello del Trebbio wedding starts from €150,000, and for optimal results we recommend budgeting €250,000 all-in for 50 to 80 guests.

Just under €34,000 for 30 guests, just under €40,000 for 40, and just under €48,000 for 51. All tax included.

That buys the accommodation, the apartment to get ready in, the courtyard ceremony, an aperitivo and a five-course dinner with a bottle of wine for every two guests, restaurant exclusivity, an open bar with the dance floor until two and pizza at midnight, the castle and cellar tour with a welcome dinner and tasting, two breakfasts, a brunch and a farewell dinner.

Just under €29,000 for 30 guests, just under €32,000 for 40, and just under €38,000 for 51.

The shorter stay drops to a three-course dinner, a bottle of wine for every three guests and a simpler open bar, and it loses the farewell dinner and one breakfast.

Once all 51 beds on the estate are booked, guests staying nearby are charged per head: €210 for the ceremony, the wedding dinner and the open bar, €290 with the welcome dinner added, and €350 with the farewell dinner as well.

The order matters. The estate will not sell those seats until the houses are full, so the accommodation is the first decision rather than the last.

Flowers, photography, the band, the planning and anything the estate’s restaurant does not cook. The venue line here is small, and the suppliers are most of the budget.

Tuscany does not usually price like this, and the shape of the package is what makes it work.

What Trebbio sells is a weekend for a fixed sum: beds, four or five meals, the drink, the ceremony space and the room exclusivity, all in one line, all taxes paid. Nothing is left to be discovered at the end, which is a real virtue in a region where the venue fee is usually the smallest part of the bill.

The package is built around its size. Fifty-one beds and 80 seats set the scale of the wedding, and the packages are priced against the beds rather than the seats, which makes this a wedding for up to 80 guests.

For 50 to 80 people this is among the most complete venue propositions in the Florence hills, and the thing we do with the saving is spend it on the parts the estate does not touch.

Fifty-one beds across the estate’s villas and farm apartments.

They are houses rather than hotel rooms, which means a wedding party spreads out across the land with two or three pools between them, and it means the rooming list is a real piece of work. The estate asks for it three weeks before arrival, naming every couple, every guest travelling alone and every cot required.

One apartment is held for the bride to get ready in on the wedding day, and it comes inside the package rather than as an extra.

Check-in runs between a quarter to four and half past five in the afternoon, and the cellar tour starts at six, so every arrival has to land before a quarter to six. We build the travel day around that hour rather than the other way round.

The castle is on the Via di Santa Brigida above Pontassieve, in the province of Florence, in the Chianti Rufina.

Florence city centre is 29 minutes and the airport 36.

Florence Peretola is 36 minutes by road. Bologna is an hour and 32 and Pisa an hour and 51, and both carry more long-haul traffic than Florence.

Siena is an hour and 28, Perugia two hours and 12, and Rome Fiumicino three hours and 44.

Half an hour from Florence makes this one of the rare Tuscan estates where guests can sightsee in the morning and be back for the aperitivo.

A fixed price, an 80-seat dinner, and an arrival hour that governs the travel day.

Three nights, not two.

Three nights for 51 guests is just under €48,000 against just under €38,000 for two, so the extra night costs about ten thousand euros and buys a five-course dinner instead of three, a farewell dinner, a second breakfast and more wine. That is the strongest value anywhere in this pack.

The houses fill before the seats count.

The estate prices off-site guests once all 51 beds are taken, so we settle the rooming list before the guest list goes beyond 51. We always start from the beds and work outwards.

The pools close outside the season.

The estate opens the pools from May to September. April and October are two of the gentlest months in Tuscany, and a wedding built around the houses and their water belongs in the season, so we steer a pool wedding to June or September.

The arrival day runs backwards from six o’clock.

The cellar tour and the welcome dinner start at six on the check-in day, and check-in closes at half past five. Flights, transfers and the last guest all have to clear that gate, and we build the whole travel day around it.

Magic Day plans weddings at Castello del Trebbio from the first conversation to the final farewell. That means the three-night package priced against the two, the rooming list across the villas settled before the guest list grows, the off-site guests priced per head once the beds are full, the courtyard set for the ceremony inside its two hours, the suppliers the estate does not provide all appointed by us, the travel day built backwards from the six o’clock tour, and the music held to the two o’clock finish in writing.

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.