Castello Vicchiomaggio wedding

Vicchiomaggio is a Renaissance castle on a ridge above the Greve valley, in Chianti Classico, half an hour south of Florence.

The building is fifteenth century and the estate around it makes wine. Inside there are frescoed renaissance halls; outside there is a terrace, a garden and a swimming pool, with the vineyards falling away below. A short way down the hill sits Il Borgo di Vicchiomaggio, a cluster of two old farmhouses and two barns around a shared pool, let separately.

The castle serves as a Municipal House, which is why most couples find it.

The castle hire buys the restaurant, the garden and the pool for the wedding day, and the spaces inside and out are used in sequence.

Frescoed rooms inside the castle, seating up to 40 for a wedding party, and the setting for a civil or symbolic ceremony with a €350 setting fee.

The outdoor rooms over the vineyard, where the aperitivo and the dinner happen when the weather holds.

The indoor room for music and dancing, used in bad weather only, which is precisely how the estate describes it.

Two historic farmhouses, two barns and a shared swimming pool below the castle, taken whole for up to 24 people.

A Castello Vicchiomaggio wedding starts from €100,000, and for optimal results we recommend budgeting €150,000 all-in for 50 to 90 guests.

Mandatory for the wedding day, and starting at just over €6,000 for a midweek date between April and October.

It buys sole use of the restaurant, the garden and the swimming pool. On the days before and after the wedding it is optional, and if it is not taken the castle stays open to the public, so we price the hire for the welcome-dinner day alongside the wedding day.

The castle’s 15 rooms sleep 36 as standard, with a three-night minimum from April to October. Twelve suites take two people and three take four; ten can add a sofa bed for a child between three and twelve at €50 a bed, and four cribs are available.

Il Borgo below is hired as a whole for up to 24 people: just under €14,000 for three nights, just under €17,000 for four, just over €21,000 for five and just over €28,000 for seven. A refundable deposit of €1,000 is taken per house on arrival.

The wedding menu is €140 or €168 a head, quoted for a minimum of 40 guests, with a 20% uplift below that number. A three-hour open bar is just under €4,000 for up to 60 people and just under €5,000 for up to 90.

Welcome and farewell evenings are priced per head for a minimum of 30 guests: a barbecue at €75 for up to 70 people, a pizza party at €55, a Tuscan supper at €50, and a happy-hour dinner at €60.

Extending the party to two in the morning is a charge under €2,000, agreed in advance.

Most Tuscan weddings are two events in two places. The civil ceremony happens in a town hall in the morning, everyone drives, and the symbolic ceremony happens at the venue in the afternoon.

Vicchiomaggio serves as a Municipal House, so the civil ceremony is legally celebrated at the castle itself. One location, one ceremony, no convoy, no hour of the day lost to cars and parking, and no need to stage a second version of the same moment for the photographs.

What it saves is not really money. It is the middle of the wedding day, which at every other venue in this valley is spent getting 90 people from a municipal office back up a hill. We would always rather spend that hour on the terrace.

A setting fee of €350 applies if the ceremony is held inside the renaissance ballrooms rather than in the garden.

The castle’s covered capacity is 40, and that is the figure every decision here is planned around.

The renaissance halls seat 40 for a wedding party. The Gigli room takes the music and the dancing, and the estate is explicit that it does so in bad weather only. The open-bar pricing runs to 90 guests, so the estate plainly hosts weddings of that size outdoors.

Taken together, a wedding of 90 here is an outdoor wedding with a 40-person indoor room behind it. In April or October, when this ridge can turn cold and wet, we plan for that weather from the first draft.

For 90 under cover, the castle’s own rooms are joined by a structure we bring in.

There are two ways to plan it. Near 40 it is one of the most complete small venues in Chianti, with a legal ceremony, a frescoed hall and a vineyard terrace in the same place. At 90 it takes a proper covered structure from the start, set beside the terrace.

We always price both, and the structure sits in the budget from day one.

Sixty beds in two parts.

The castle itself has 15 rooms and suites, 36 people as standard, ranging from 20 to 60 square metres and furnished in a classic Tuscan style, all with a view over the vineyard. From April to October they carry a three-night minimum. Daily cleaning, wifi and pool access for resident guests are included; the city tax is €2 a head a day.

Il Borgo, down the hill, adds 24 across two farmhouses and two barns with their own pool. It is rented as a block rather than by the room, with heating charged separately at €350 a week outside the warm months.

Sixty beds against 90 guests leaves a third of the party in Greve or Florence, both close enough that the transfer is short.

The castle is on the Via Vicchiomaggio above Greve in Chianti, in the province of Florence.

Florence city centre is 32 minutes and the airport 45.

Florence Peretola is 45 minutes by road. Bologna is an hour and 33 and Pisa an hour and 40, and both take more long-haul flights than Florence.

Siena is an hour and five and Rome Fiumicino three hours and 44.

Thirty-two minutes from the middle of Florence is as close as a real Chianti castle gets, and it means guests can spend the Friday in the city and be on the terrace by seven.

A legal ceremony on site, a small covered room, and a late hour that is cheaper bought early.

The Municipal House status keeps the ceremony at the castle.

The civil ceremony can happen at the castle, which removes the town-hall trip that costs every other Chianti wedding the middle of its day. We schedule the legal and the celebratory moment as one thing rather than two.

Forty or 90, and the choice comes first.

Forty is the covered capacity and 90 is where the estate’s own drinks pricing stops. A wedding at 40 needs nothing extra; a wedding at 90 needs a structure budgeted from the beginning, and that decision drives the whole plan.

The two o’clock extension is agreed in advance.

It is a charge under €2,000 agreed in advance, and the band has to be contracted for the longer evening regardless. Leaving it to the night means paying for musicians who are already going home.

Without the hire, the castle stays open to the public.

On the days either side of the wedding the hire is optional, and without it the castle stays open to the public. We price the hire for the welcome-dinner day too, so the terrace can be yours that evening.

Magic Day plans weddings at Castello Vicchiomaggio from the first conversation to the final farewell. That means the civil ceremony arranged at the castle under its Municipal House status, the guest list settled against the forty-person covered capacity with a structure priced if it goes past it, the castle hire priced for the welcome-dinner day as well so the terrace can stay private, Il Borgo booked as a block for the families, the castle’s three-night minimum built into the dates, the menus and the open bar sized to the final number, and the two o’clock extension agreed in writing before signature.

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 days come to.