Il Borgo di Vignamaggio wedding

The estate stands above Greve in Chianti, on the road towards Lamole and Panzano, in the middle of the Chianti Classico zone.

The main house is fifteenth century and the estate is older. Tradition holds that Lisa Gherardini, the woman who sat for the Mona Lisa, was born here, and while that is a tradition rather than a documented fact it has attached itself to the place for centuries and the estate is comfortable with it.

What a couple actually gets is a working wine estate restored into something unusual: seventeen suites, a dormitory, four painted halls, five orchards cut into the hillside, a pool, and a nightclub built into the old buildings.

The estate is sold whole and the wedding has every part of it.

Five terraces cut into the hill, each with a different outlook over the Chianti. The ceremony and the dinner both happen outdoors here when the weather allows.

The long vaulted hall with its chandeliers and frescoed walls, which seats a wedding dinner under a ceiling rather than a marquee. This is the wet-weather plan and it is a better room than most estates’ first choice.

A glasshouse of palms and tiled floor, used for the aperitivo and for the quieter half of the evening.

A proper one, inside the buyout, under the old buildings. It is the reason the small hours at Vignamaggio look different from the small hours anywhere else in the Chianti.

A Vignamaggio wedding starts from €250,000, and for optimal results we recommend budgeting €350,000 all-in for 100 to 150 guests.

The estate is available only as a private buyout, and every rate is quoted twice: Tuesday to Thursday, and Friday to Monday.

With VAT included it runs from just over €25,000 a night on a weekday between November and March to just under €43,000 at a weekend in June or September. Those two months are the ones the estate prices highest, October sits just below them, and the spring and high summer fall in between.

Two nights are the minimum from Tuesday to Thursday and three from Friday to Monday, which matters as much as the rate itself.

Full access to the estate, the private pool and the nightclub. Five outdoor orchards and four indoor event spaces. Dedicated staff around the clock, daily breakfast and a welcome drink on arrival.

Up to eight hours of bar service a day at either of the two bars. The seventeen suites and the eight-bed dormitory, with a complimentary minibar in each.

Food and drink, which go through a selected group of catering partners rather than an open market. Flowers, photography, planning and music, for which the estate offers a preferred partners list on request.

The wine is the estate’s own and that is part of what the place is.

This is the clearest case on the whole Tuscan list for not marrying on a Saturday.

A weekend in June is just under €43,000 a night with a three-night minimum, which is a little under €129,000. The same week on a Tuesday-to-Thursday basis is just under €40,000 a night with a two-night minimum, which is just under €80,000.

That is close to €50,000 of difference for a wedding four days earlier in the same month, and almost all of it comes from the extra night rather than from the nightly rate. For a guest list that is flying in and staying anyway, the day of the week is often the cheapest thing a couple can change.

We put the weekday option on the table first and let the couple decide. Many will still want the Saturday, and at least they will know what it costs.

The buyout includes a nightclub, built into the old buildings under the estate.

An estate that puts one in the price and then hands the whole property to a single wedding is not expecting the evening to stop at ten, and that is the strongest argument for a late finish available at any venue on this list.

A band is still booked against an hour rather than an argument. We confirm the finishing hour with the estate, write it into the agreement before signature, and arrange the SIAE licence alongside it.

Forty-five beds: seventeen suites and a dormitory of eight.

The dormitory is worth dwelling on, because estates rarely offer one and couples rarely expect it. It is done in a 1920s style and it is meant for the bridal party, a group of cousins or the friends who want to be together rather than for an overflow nobody could place. Used properly it solves the problem of where the people getting ready together actually sleep.

Beyond 45, the estate links in its own cottages and a boutique hotel nearby and includes private transfers between them, which takes the party to roughly 150 under one arrangement. Past that, Greve and Panzano are both close.

That gap is the trade-off here, though, and it is a wide one. The spaces seat 250 and the beds stop at 45, so a wedding at the top of the capacity cannot sleep anywhere near where it dances, and the evening ends when the cars go rather than when the music does.

The estate is above Greve in Chianti, in the province of Florence, towards Lamole and Panzano.

Florence city centre is 42 minutes and Siena an hour and one, which puts this among the most easily reached estates in the Chianti.

Florence Peretola is 55 minutes by road. Bologna is an hour and 43 and Pisa an hour and 49, and both are worth naming for guests arriving from further afield because Florence is a small airport with limited long-haul service.

Rome Fiumicino is three hours and 45 and is not the route.

The day of the week is worth more than the month here.

Price the Wednesday before committing to the Saturday.

Weekdays are several thousand a night cheaper and need two nights instead of three, which in June is a difference of about €50,000. We always run both numbers at the first conversation, because a couple whose guests are flying in and staying the week often does not care which day it is, and nobody tells them what it saves.

Use the dormitory deliberately.

Eight beds in one room sounds like a compromise and is not. We put the bridal party in it, which keeps the morning together in one place and frees the suites for the people who most need their own door.

Do not plan for 250 without planning the beds.

Five orchards and four halls will seat 250, and the estate sleeps 45. The jump from a wedding that sleeps on site to one that does not is the single biggest change in how the weekend feels, and the estate’s own cottages and hotel handle it up to about 150 with transfers included. Beyond that it becomes a logistics exercise and should be chosen knowingly.

The nightclub is inside the buyout.

An estate that builds one into the price is not planning a ten o’clock finish, and that is the strongest argument for a late night at any venue on this list. We agree the hour and put it in the contract before the deposit, because a nightclub with a ten o’clock finish is an expensive room to look at.

Magic Day plans weddings at Il Borgo di Vignamaggio from the first conversation to the final farewell. That means the buyout priced on both a weekday and a weekend basis so the choice is informed, the guest list drawn against 45 beds and the estate’s linked cottages, the dormitory allocated to the bridal party, the catering taken through the estate’s selected partners, the legal ceremony arranged at Greve, the finishing hour agreed in writing, and the nightclub actually used.

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.