Monteverdi Tuscany wedding

Monteverdi is a medieval hamlet in the Val d’Orcia, above Sarteano, restored building by building into a hotel.

The village is the hotel. A square with a twelfth-century Romanesque church, lanes between stone houses, an art gallery in one building and a spa in another, a cookery school in the old village schoolhouse, and an archaeological garden beside the ruins of Castiglioncello’s castle. Mount Amiata and Monte Cetona sit on the horizon.

It holds two Michelin Keys.

The kitchen is led by chef Riccardo Bacciottini, a Tuscan who cooked in Michelin-starred kitchens abroad before coming home, and it sources from the valley around it.

A Monteverdi Tuscany wedding uses the whole village, and several of its spaces open only when the property is taken whole. The day climbs through it: the ceremony in the church, the aperitivo in a garden, dinner under the trees.

A single-room church from the twelfth century, with high ceilings, opening straight onto the square: 100 seated for a ceremony and 60 for dinner. We build the whole day around it.

The village square in front of the church, seating 100 for dinner, available only on a buyout. The ceremony walks out of the church door into the aperitivo.

The highest point of the village, beside the archaeological site of the old castle, seating 100 with the valley on every side. This is where we put the dinner when the evening is clear.

The terrace and lawn of the largest village house, seating 100 on the lawn, with six bedrooms behind it for the couple and the families.

Lavender in summer and the long view to Monte Amiata, seating 60 for a ceremony and holding 100 standing. It opens only on a buyout.

The old schoolhouse seats 22 for a private dinner, and its garden 80 under a pergola with Monte Cetona beyond. It carries the welcome dinner.

Zita, the restaurant on the square, seats 55 across several rooms, and Oreade is the fine-dining room. The Lounge and Terrace Bar seats 50 and takes 100 standing, and with the Library Bar it carries the party after midnight.

A Monteverdi Tuscany wedding starts from €250,000, and for optimal results we recommend budgeting €350,000 all-in for 60 to 100 guests.

The whole village by the night, from just over €35,000 between November and April to just over €44,000 from May to October. From 34 guests the buyout is three nights at least.

The 21 hotel rooms and all the private village houses, sole use of the spa, the Culinary Academy, the retreat centre, the gardens and the infinity pool, a 50-minute water circuit for every guest, both restaurants and both bars privatised, and daily housekeeping and breakfast.

All food and drink at Monteverdi Tuscany is the hotel’s own, with a food-and-drink spend of €15,000 a day on top of the buyout.

A plated four-course dinner is €220 a head without drinks, €250 with the standard wine pairing and €290 with the superior one. The Tuscan village feast in the piazza is €165 with the house wines and beer, a welcome aperitivo €15 to €35, and the bar packages start from €25 a head for an hour.

Below 34 guests the village need not be taken whole. Muri Antichi, the six-bedroom house with its garden, runs from just over €5,000 to just under €6,000 a night by season. The Culinary Academy and its garden can also be taken on their own for a day or an evening.

The tent, the flowers, the music, the lighting, the photography, and the transfers from Rome or Florence.

The village holds 80 overnight and 100 at the wedding, and a smaller number decides the budget first.

From 34 guests, Monteverdi Tuscany is taken whole for three nights. A wedding of 30 books rooms and a garden; a wedding of 40 takes a hilltop village for three days, with the daily food-and-drink spend attached. Three summer nights come to just over €177,000 before a flower is cut.

That is the decision we settle with a couple before anything else, because it decides what kind of wedding this is. Above 34 it buys a medieval village with no one in it but the guests.

Outdoor music at Monteverdi Tuscany stops at midnight.

Monteverdi is a living village, and that is the reason for the limit. On a buyout the celebration carries on indoors until two in the morning.

That reshapes the evening rather than shortening it. Dinner and the first dances belong outdoors in the piazza or the Cassero Garden until twelve, and then the party moves indoors to Zita and the Library Bar, both privatised inside the buyout.

Indoors, nothing at Monteverdi Tuscany seats more than 60 for dinner.

So the hotel requires a tent for every outdoor celebration, in case of bad weather, and for a wedding of 60 to 100 that tent is the wet-weather plan for the dinner. We price it into the first budget and plan its rigging through the village lanes, which is a harder job than a lawn.

Monteverdi Tuscany has 32 rooms and sleeps 80.

Twenty-one are hotel rooms and the rest are private village houses of two, three and six bedrooms, so families get their own front doors inside the same walls. Two more houses in the hamlet are independently owned, and we add them to the wedding to reach the 80.

Breakfast, daily housekeeping, the spa, the infinity pool and a 50-minute water circuit for every guest all sit inside the buyout.

The hamlet is at Castiglioncello del Trinoro, in the comune of Sarteano, in the province of Siena, in the Val d’Orcia.

Siena is an hour and 22 and Florence city centre an hour and 38.

Perugia is an hour and 30 by road, Florence Peretola an hour and 49 and Rome Fiumicino two hours and 40. Bologna is two hours and 36 and Pisa two hours and 50.

Chiusi-Chianciano Terme, on the Rome to Florence main line, is the nearest station.

Rome is the arrival we put on most invitations here. It is not the closest airport, but it takes direct long-haul flights, and the motorway north runs to Chiusi, half an hour below the village.

A whole village, a daily spend, and a curfew set by the neighbours.

Spend the minimum across the weekend.

The €15,000 a day is spent whatever anyone eats. We put it to work across the welcome dinner at the Culinary Academy, the village feast in the piazza, the wedding and the farewell brunch, so none of it goes unused.

Midnight outside, two inside.

We schedule the last outdoor set to end at a quarter to twelve, so the move into the bars happens on a high note rather than mid-song.

The rate is flat from May to October.

A September wedding costs exactly what an August one does. We take late May or the second half of September and let the budget stay where it is.

Suppliers are ours to choose.

The food and drink are the hotel’s, and nothing else is tied to it. We bring florists and lighting teams who already know the village and its lanes.

Magic Day plans weddings at Monteverdi Tuscany from the first conversation to the final farewell, for 30 guests in Muri Antichi or for 100 with the whole village taken. The hotel provides the hamlet, its 32 rooms, its kitchen and its staff, and its events team works through the couple’s planner.

That leaves the design of three days, the tent, the flowers, the music, the lighting, the civil ceremony in Sarteano and the transfers from Rome with the planner. We know how Monteverdi Tuscany runs: the three-night buyout from 34 guests, the daily food-and-drink spend planned across the weekend, the indoor limit of 60 that makes the tent the rain plan, and the move indoors at midnight.

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