Castello di Ristonchi wedding

Castello di Ristonchi is a hamlet built around a castle tower, high on a ridge in the comune of Pelago, east of Florence.

The estate dates the castle to around a thousand years, and the place still reads as the village it once was: a square stone tower, a chapel with a small crenellated bell tower, farm buildings in rough stone, and olive groves and forest running down the slope. At 550 metres it sits well above the valley floor, and the evenings come in cooler than they do in Florence.

Stefanie and Rasmus have owned and restored Castello di Ristonchi since 2017 and live on the estate. They run it as a working eco-farm that makes its own olive oil and honey, and they host a limited number of weddings each year.

A Castello di Ristonchi Tuscany wedding is built as a three-day stay rather than a single evening, and the hamlet is small enough that every part of it is a short walk from the rooms.

We design it in that order: pizza on the terrace the night guests arrive, the ceremony and dinner on the second day, the pool the morning after.

The estate’s stone chapel stands beside the tower. It is the ceremony setting when it rains, for up to 80 guests, and on a dry day it frames the walk from the rooms to the lawn.

An open lawn near the guest rooms, with the wooded hills behind it, holding up to 150 for an outdoor ceremony. It is the setting most couples choose for a Castello di Ristonchi Tuscany wedding, and it photographs well into the last hour before sunset.

The indoor hall that carries dinner for up to 80 when the weather turns.

The terrace with the wood-fired pizza oven, where the welcome night happens with two vintage Ape trucks serving as bars.

A spring-water pool facing the hills, with a hot tub beside it, which is where the day after belongs.

The castle’s former dungeon, now a late-night room with its own bar and DJ. When outdoor music stops at ten, the party goes underground, and we prefer to move the whole wedding down together rather than let it thin out on the lawn.

A Castello di Ristonchi wedding starts from €100,000, and for optimal results we recommend budgeting €200,000.

The estate sells the weekend as one price with VAT, tourist tax and music licensing already inside it, and every package takes the whole hamlet:

• Two midweek nights for up to 50 guests: just under €63,000
• Three nights for up to 80 guests: just under €79,000
• Three nights for up to 100 guests, with a full open bar and return transport from Florence: just under €180,000

Extra guests join at €885 a head. On the 80-guest package that brings the wedding up to around 130, with the additional guests staying nearby.

The rooms, every meal across the stay, the bar and the late party in the Rave Cave are all in the Castello di Ristonchi wedding cost. The estate’s kitchen cooks everything eaten on site.

One thing about the price changes how we plan it.

It does not fall with a shorter guest list. The packages are sold as a full-property weekend, not per person, so 60 guests on the 80-guest package pay the same as 80.

Photography and film, the hair stylist, design and any flowers beyond the package, the civil ceremony, and transport on the two smaller packages. Weekdays and off-season dates carry the lowest Castello di Ristonchi wedding cost, and a date less than nine months away takes a further 10% off.

Twenty-four apartments and studios across four buildings sleep up to 100, and every package includes all of them.

The Castello holds ten of the Castello di Ristonchi rooms, from studios for three to an apartment for six, several with long views over the valley. The apartment at Castello 10 and 11 holds the getting-ready room, with its large fireplace. The Borghetto has seven apartments, most a few steps up from the lane, and the Fattoria five, among them the bridal suite and two apartments sleeping nine.

Villa Capella sits between the chapel and the neighbouring houses, furthest from the Rave Cave. It is the quiet building, and the one we give to the grandparents.

The interiors are rustic: beamed ceilings, terracotta floors, iron canopy beds and a fridge in every unit. The Castello di Ristonchi rooms in the tower are reached by one to four flights of stone stairs, so we map the rooming list with you building by building before anyone travels.

Castello di Ristonchi sits above Diacceto in the comune of Pelago, in the Valdisieve hills, 28 kilometres by road east of Florence.

Florence’s centre is 43 minutes by road, Pelago itself ten, and the forest at Vallombrosa 22.

Florence Peretola is the airport to use, 58 minutes from the estate. Pisa is an hour and 54 and Bologna an hour and 50, and both carry direct UK flights. Rome Fiumicino is three hours and 20, and it is where the direct US flights land.

By train, Pontassieve station is 21 minutes away and on the line into Florence Santa Maria Novella, which is 49 minutes by road. A 20-seat shuttle from Florence can be booked, and it is included in the largest package.

One price, one curfew, and a hamlet of stone stairs.

Outdoor music at Castello di Ristonchi stops at ten.

The estate sets its outdoor music curfew at ten, and after that the bar and the DJ carry on in the Rave Cave until one or half past two. We schedule dinner early enough that the speeches and the first dance land outside in the last light, and the move underground becomes part of the evening rather than the end of it.

The price covers the whole hamlet.

The weekend costs the same at 60 as at 80. We put the two lists side by side at the first conversation, because at Castello di Ristonchi the decision is about the room, not the budget.

The wet-weather plan stops at 80.

The chapel and the Templar Hall carry a wedding of up to 80 when it rains. Above that the plan is a stretch tent, which comes with the largest package, and we cost it into the others from the start.

The kitchen, the bar and the DJ are the estate’s own.

Everything eaten and poured on site comes from the estate’s own team, and the DJ is theirs too, but the wedding around them is not. Photographers, film crews and hair stylists are ours to appoint and manage, and we bring the ones who already know the stairs and the light.

Magic Day plans weddings at Castello di Ristonchi from the first conversation to the final farewell. The estate’s price covers the rooms, the kitchen, the bar and the late party, which is more than most Tuscan venues include. Everything else is ours: the design, the photographer and film crew, the hair stylist, the civil ceremony at the comune, the extra guests beyond the 100 beds, and the transport on the smaller packages.

What we know from working the hamlet is in the details. The tower apartments are up several flights of stone stairs, so the rooming list starts with who should be on the ground floor. Villa Capella is the quiet building. And the move into the Rave Cave at ten lands as a moment only when it is planned as one.

We take the whole wedding down together.

We manage celebrations here from 50 guests to 130. Tell us the dates you are considering and how many people are coming, and we will tell you what the weekend comes to.