Castello di Velona wedding

Velona is a castle of the eleventh century, on a hill at Castelnuovo dell’Abate, ten minutes from Montalcino.

It stands over the Val d’Orcia, a UNESCO World Heritage landscape, and the vineyards on its slopes make Brunello di Montalcino under the castle’s own label. Below the walls, three kilometres away, is the Abbey of Sant’Antimo, founded in the ninth century, by legend by Charlemagne.

What sets the castle apart is the water.

A natural spring rises at 36 degrees, and OLISPA, the spa built around it, covers 1,500 square metres in travertine, with four thermal pools, two inside and two out, open day and night. The castle keeps two restaurants: SettimoSenso, with its terrace over the vineyards, and Dolce Vita by the pool.

The castle is built in terraces at different heights, and a Castello di Velona wedding moves down through them: the ceremony on a terrace, the aperitivo in the Tower Square, and dinner on the Sunset Terrace as the light goes over the valley.

The largest space in the castle: 150 seated for a ceremony, 180 at round tables and 250 at imperial tables, facing west over the valley. We always put the wedding dinner here when the weather allows.

The Round Terrace carries a ceremony or the aperitivo, and taken with the Tower Square below it holds 150 to 200. The square alone seats 60 or takes 120 for drinks.

A ceremony for 150 or dinner for 120 at imperial tables, beside the thermal water.

A ceremony for 100 and dinner for 80, on the vineyard side of the castle, and the right size for a welcome dinner.

The restaurant seats 150 at imperial tables, its terrace 80, and the Barrique Room 80 at a U-shaped table. Indoors the castle holds 150 for dinner, and this is the room that takes it.

In the castle’s old south tower, a suite with a terrace of 180 square metres and a pool of thermal water, for a ceremony of up to 60.

A Castello di Velona wedding starts from €350,000, and for optimal results we recommend budgeting €550,000 all-in for 100 to 200 guests.

Castello di Velona is taken whole from €35,000 to €55,000 a night, by season. That includes all 45 suites, breakfast, the spa and every space and terrace.

A food-and-drink minimum of 30% of the accommodation figure applies, and a daily event fee is added for each day of the celebration.

The castle is also let in part, by the day and with no minimum stay. The Sunset Wing takes 19 suites and the Sunset Terrace for up to 250, and the Brunello Wing 15 castle suites and the Brunello Terrace for 80. The Sunset Wing costs about half a buyout night, and the Brunello Wing a little over a third.

The kitchen is the castle’s own. A gala dinner starts from €150 a head for three courses and €175 for four, a welcome dinner or pizza night from €110, and a brunch from €90, all before drinks.

The wine with dinner is €60 to €90 a head, and the open bar €40 to €90 a head an hour.

The flowers, the music, the lighting, the photography, the ceremony, the transfers, and the rooms for every guest beyond the castle’s 115.

Most venues set a food-and-drink floor in euros. Velona sets it at 30% of the accommodation, which behaves quite differently.

Three nights of the whole castle in high season put the minimum just under €50,000. The same three nights in November put it just over €31,000. The guest list has not changed; the obligation has.

So we model the rooms and the food together, and spend the minimum on purpose across the whole stay.

There is no music curfew at Castello di Velona when the castle is taken whole.

That is the point of the buyout. With every suite taken by the wedding, the castle sets no music restrictions, and the party can run around the clock.

On a wing package the music hours go into the contract, and we fix them before signature. What decides the end of the night on a buyout is the open bar, priced by the hour, so we set it in the first budget.

Castello di Velona has 45 suites, sleeping 115.

They come in two styles. The Castle Suites sit inside the old walls, with deep windows and wide rooms. The UNESCO View Suites are modern, and each opens onto a private terrace or garden over the valley, with a bath of the castle’s thermal water.

Twenty more rooms can be added within walking distance. For a wedding of 200 we take the castle for the families and the wedding party and put the rest of the guests in Montalcino, with transfers for every event.

The castle is at Castelnuovo dell’Abate, in the comune of Montalcino, in the province of Siena, on the southern edge of the Val d’Orcia.

Siena is an hour and 16 by road and Florence two hours and nine.

Rome Fiumicino is three hours and 30, with direct flights from the United States and London, and Florence Peretola is two hours and 19. Pisa is two hours and 56 and Perugia two hours and three.

Buonconvento, 18 kilometres away, is the nearest railway station, and the castle has its own helipad. We put Rome on most invitations here, because the flights are direct and the drive is motorway nearly the whole way.

The castle can be taken whole or in part, and the right choice depends on how many guests sleep inside the walls.

Decide how many sleep on the hill.

The buyout puts 115 guests in the castle and the wedding in every space. A wing package costs a third to a half as much a day and puts 30 to 50 guests in the castle. We price both before anything is held.

Above 150, the rain plan is a structure.

Indoors the castle seats 150 in one dining room. For a dinner of 200 on the Sunset Terrace we cost a covered structure from the first budget and release it if the forecast is kind.

The 30% minimum buys three meals.

It grows with the room bill, so we allocate it at the planning stage to the welcome dinner, the wedding and the farewell brunch.

Nothing here is close.

The castle has the valley to itself, but Siena is over an hour away and both Tuscan airports over two. We book coaches rather than cars, stage the arrivals across two days, and put the welcome dinner late enough that a delayed flight does not miss it.

Magic Day plans weddings at Castello di Velona from the first conversation to the final farewell, for 60 guests on the Brunello Terrace or 250 on the Sunset Terrace. The castle provides its suites, its kitchen, the spa and the terraces, and charges a daily event fee for supplier coordination.

That leaves the design, the flowers, the music, the lighting, the ceremony and its paperwork, the rooms beyond 115 and the coaches from Rome with the planner. We price the buyout against a wing package before either is held, and model the 30% food minimum with the room bill.

What we know from working the castle is the shape of its days: dinner on the Sunset Terrace, SettimoSenso dressed in case of rain, no curfew on a buyout, and arrivals staged over two days from airports more than two hours away.

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