Chianti wedding

A Chianti wedding runs €100,000 to €300,000 all-in for 40 guests, €150,000 to €450,000 for 80, and €250,000 to €600,000 at 150. Catering is €140 to €350 a head before drinks. Magic Day weddings in Chianti start from €100,000.

The hire an estate quotes here buys walls, a garden and sometimes the beds. So here is where a wedding at each of these properties realistically lands, all-in, with the figure it starts from:

• Borgo San Felice: near €550,000, from €350,000
• Borgo Scopeto, Borgo Vescine and Il Borgo di Vignamaggio: near €350,000, from €250,000
• Castello di Bossi: near €300,000, from €200,000
• Castello di Spaltenna, Castello Vicchiomaggio, Castello Il Palagio, Castello di Bibbione, Castello di Gabbiano, Castello di Meleto, Castello La Leccia and Castello di Montalto: near €250,000, from €150,000
• Borgo Argiano and Dievole Wine Resort: near €250,000, from €150,000

Most of the castles land in the same place.

What separates them is how much of the wedding has to be brought in. Borgo San Felice and Borgo Scopeto are hotels with a kitchen, a staff and every room inside the buyout. A castle let for the day, like Il Palagio or Bibbione, is a courtyard and a garden, and the caterer, the furniture and the guests’ beds all come from somewhere else.

The Tuscany page sets the Chianti against the rest of the region.

Magic Day has been established in Florence at 41 Via Simone Martini since 2014.

Magic Day has planned weddings across 11 countries since 2008, and the Chianti is run from the same office as Florence. A Chianti wedding planner spends the first weeks on a question the photographs never answer: what each of these castles actually holds on the day.

Nine of the fifteen are castles and most are working wine estates. Some come with a kitchen and rooms for everyone, some with a courtyard and nothing else, and two neighbouring properties on the same ridge can differ by four hours on the music and by a town hall on the ceremony.

Then the Italian administration. A nulla osta from your embassy, sworn translations and apostilles over three to six months, and at ten of these venues an appointment at the comune for the legal marriage on a weekday before the wedding.

And the local knowledge, which is where a wedding planner in Chianti earns the fee. Which white road a coach can take to the castle gate. Which estate’s chapel is consecrated and which is not. Which of the hamlets will still feel like a village with 130 people in it, and which is at its most beautiful with 60.

Tell us the month, the guest count and whether you want a hamlet or a castle, and we will tell you which of these fifteen can hold it.

Fifteen properties, every one with a page of its own carrying the figures in full. Six are hamlets and estates, and the nine castles follow under their own heading.

The figure that separates them is the beds. A hamlet taken whole sleeps the wedding, and with a castle let for the day the guests sleep in the farmhouses nearby or in Florence and Siena.

Borgo San Felice is a medieval hamlet in the vineyards of Castelnuovo Berardenga, half an hour from Siena, restored as a resort with 62 rooms along its lanes and a Romanesque church in its own piazza. It seats 135, and a buyout of the whole borgo is required from 80 guests. Read the full Borgo San Felice wedding guide.

Borgo Scopeto joins a medieval hamlet with a square tower to an 18th-century villa, 23 minutes from Siena, with the city visible across the hills from the ceremony lawn. It sleeps 130 in 52 rooms and holds a licence for a civil ceremony on the property. Read the full Borgo Scopeto wedding guide.

Borgo Vescine is a stone hamlet on a ridge above Radda, taken whole, with a piazza at its centre and an olive grove below it where the ceremony goes. It seats 100, sleeps 65, and sets no curfew on the music at all. Read the full Borgo Vescine wedding guide.

Il Borgo di Vignamaggio above Greve is a 15th-century estate with five panoramic orchards, four painted halls and a nightclub under the old buildings. It takes 250, the largest wedding in the Chianti, and sleeps 45, which is the widest gap on this page. Read the full Il Borgo di Vignamaggio wedding guide.

Borgo Argiano is a stone hamlet on a hilltop in the south of the Chianti Classico, 25 minutes from Siena, with a frescoed chapel at its centre licensed for a civil ceremony. It seats 150 outdoors and sleeps 28 across 12 apartments.

Dievole Wine Resort at Vagliagli sits at the end of an avenue of century-old cypresses, a villa and a hamlet of restored stone buildings among its own vineyards. It seats 72 and sleeps 72, so every guest is on the hill and nobody else is.

Nine castles. A Chianti castle wedding is not one thing, though: some of these are hotels, some are wine estates that let their courtyard for the day, and three of them can marry you legally inside the walls.

We sort them by what the couple wants from the castle.

Castello Vicchiomaggio is a Renaissance wine castle on a ridge above Greve, 32 minutes from Florence, with frescoed halls and a terrace over the vines. It serves as a municipal house, so the civil ceremony is legally celebrated at the castle with no second location.

Castello di Bossi stands among 700 hectares of family vineyards on the road to Brolio, a stone castle wrapped in Virginia creeper with three farmhouses around it sleeping 63. It hosts official civil ceremonies, and seats 80 indoors with more in the courtyards.

Castello di Montalto is a crenellated castle of a thousand years at the end of a white road between Siena and Arezzo, still lived in by the family who farm the land. Its consecrated chapel takes a Catholic or Protestant ceremony, a civil ceremony can be held at the castle, and the courtyard seats 130 in summer.

Castello di Spaltenna is a fortified monastery above Gaiole built around a Romanesque bell tower, with 39 rooms and two pools. The music moves into the Bar Taverna at midnight and runs to four in the morning, the latest stated hour in the Chianti. Read the full Castello di Spaltenna wedding guide.

Castello Il Palagio at Mercatale has an arcaded courtyard, a walled garden and a consecrated chapel where a religious ceremony can be celebrated, 33 minutes from Florence. It seats 150 and runs to three in the morning, with no rooms of its own.

Castello di Meleto above Gaiole is a wine castle with a herb garden for the aperitivo, the castle itself for dinner and an old stable for the dancing. It seats 120 under cover and the party runs to two.

Castello di Bibbione stands above the Val di Pesa 36 minutes from Florence, with a courtyard for dinner, a terrace for the aperitivo and fourteen houses across its land. It seats 130 and sleeps 66, the most beds of any castle near the city.

Castello di Gabbiano is a wine castle at Mercatale with a terrace over the vineyards and a consecrated chapel in its walls. It caps a wedding at 50 guests and sleeps 40, so nearly the whole list stays inside.

Castello La Leccia above Castellina has a courtyard, an Italian garden, a lemon house and a private spa, with a chapel seating 45. It sleeps 34 across the castle and its dependance, which makes it the smallest wedding on this page.

The Chianti runs from the southern edge of Florence to the hills above Siena, and the two ends are different weddings.

The northern Chianti, around Greve and the Val di Pesa, holds Vignamaggio, Vicchiomaggio, Il Palagio, Bibbione and Gabbiano. Florence is 32 to 42 minutes away, so guests can sleep in the city and drive out, and Peretola is the airport. The estates closer than half an hour are on the Florence page instead.

The heart of the Chianti Classico, around Radda and Gaiole with Castellina to the west, is the emptiest and the most wooded. Vescine, Spaltenna, Meleto and La Leccia are here, every one of them at the end of a small road.

The southern Chianti around Castelnuovo Berardenga holds San Felice, Scopeto, Argiano, Bossi, Montalto and Dievole, all within 40 minutes of Siena. This is where the legal ceremony is easiest: four of the five venues that can marry you on site are in this one comune.

We push couples towards one end or the other rather than the middle when half the guest list wants a city at night. A city half an hour away changes the whole weekend.

Yes, and at five of these venues on their own ground.

Borgo Scopeto and Borgo Argiano are licensed for civil ceremonies by the comune of Castelnuovo Berardenga, and Castello di Bossi and Castello di Montalto host them too. Castello Vicchiomaggio serves as a municipal house above Greve. At all five, the legal marriage and the ceremony everyone remembers are the same moment.

At the other ten the ceremony on the day is symbolic or religious. Borgo San Felice has a Romanesque church in its piazza, Castello di Spaltenna stands beside its own parish church, and Castello Il Palagio’s chapel is consecrated. The legal marriage happens at the nearest town hall, from San Casciano and Greve to Radda, Gaiole, Castellina and Castelnuovo Berardenga, on a weekday beforehand, and we book it.

The paperwork is the standard Italian set: a nulla osta from your embassy, passports, birth certificates, sworn translations and apostilles, over three to six months. For a Catholic ceremony the Nihil Obstat from your home diocese is added.

There is no single Chianti curfew, and the spread is four hours.

• Midnight: Dievole Wine Resort, inside and out
• 1am: Castello di Bibbione, and Castello Vicchiomaggio with two available for a fee
• 2am: Castello di Meleto and Castello di Bossi
• 3am: Castello Il Palagio with the hours bought in advance, and Borgo Argiano indoors
• 4am: Castello di Spaltenna, in the Bar Taverna once the outdoor music stops at midnight
• No curfew at all: Borgo Vescine

At Borgo San Felice, Borgo Scopeto, Vignamaggio, Gabbiano, La Leccia and Montalto the hour is agreed with the estate for the date and written into the contract. Every one of them is taken whole, which is the strongest position a music hour can start from.

We buy the late hours at contract stage, never on the night, because the band has to be booked for them anyway.

Florence Peretola is the airport for the north of the Chianti: 38 minutes to Castello Il Palagio, 45 to Vicchiomaggio and Gabbiano, 55 to Vignamaggio.

From the estates near Siena it is an hour and a half. Pisa is two hours and a quarter from Borgo Scopeto, and Bologna carries far more European routes, so the airport is chosen by the guests’ flights rather than by the drive. Castello di Montalto, on the Arezzo side, is an hour and a half from Perugia.

None of these airports has a direct flight from the United States.

Once here, it is all hill roads, and the last kilometre to most of these castles is a white road. At Castello di Montalto, at the end of its own white road, we plan minibuses for that stretch rather than full-size coaches.

April to October, and May and September are the months we push.

Borgo Argiano, Castello di Meleto and Castello La Leccia take weddings from May, and Castello di Spaltenna closes at the end of October. July and August reach the mid-thirties inland, and Borgo Scopeto charges its top rate from mid-June to mid-September.

September is the month to move a date for. The vendemmia comes through late September, the Chianti Classico estates are picking, and Vicchiomaggio, Gabbiano, Meleto, Bossi and Dievole are all making wine around the wedding. Guests who have seen a hundred photographs of Tuscan vineyards have not seen one working.

The Chianti answers the bed question better than most of Tuscany.

Borgo San Felice sleeps 135 and Borgo Scopeto 130, so a wedding at either is a buyout of the whole hamlet with every guest inside it. Dievole sleeps everyone it seats, Castello di Gabbiano sleeps 40 of the 50 it seats, and Castello La Leccia 34 of 45.

The gap opens at Vignamaggio, which seats 250 and sleeps 45, and at Il Palagio, which has no rooms at all. There the rest of the list goes to farmhouses nearby, or back to Florence for the castles in the north.

We take the estate’s own rooms for family first, then two or three houses nearby, and publish one guest page with the drive times.

The castle sets the ceremony. Three castles marry you legally inside their walls, Il Palagio has a consecrated chapel for a religious ceremony, and most of the rest host a symbolic one. That decides the shape of the day before the venue’s looks do.

Four of the five legal venues share one comune. Castelnuovo Berardenga licenses more ceremonies on site than anywhere else in the Chianti, which is a quiet reason the southern end suits a wedding that wants everything in one place.

Midnight at Dievole and four in the morning at Spaltenna. Forty-eight minutes apart by road. We put the curfew beside the guest count in the first conversation, because the evening is what varies most between castles that look alike.

A castle let for the day is a production. At Il Palagio or Bibbione the courtyard is the venue, and the kitchen, the furniture and the transfers are ours to bring. We price that in from the first draft.

The northern castles borrow Florence. Vicchiomaggio, Il Palagio, Bibbione and Gabbiano are 32 to 39 minutes from the city, so guests can stay in Florence and the countryside still gets the wedding.

September is worth the date. The harvest turns the estates from a backdrop into a working place, and at the wine castles the guests are drinking what is being picked outside.