Villa Catignano wedding

The villa was built at the end of the 17th century by Monsignor Lodovico Sergardi, a writer who published under the name Quinto Settano, on land his family had held since the 1500s, when the hamlet was recorded as Clatinianum. His descendants still own it. The Sergardi arms hang in the entrance hall with the family motto, Expertus fidelem.

There are two houses here and they were always meant as a pair.

The villa was the family’s home, and its first-floor apartments keep their painted ceilings and frescoed walls. The Fattoria beside it was the working farm, where the estate made its wine and its olive oil, and the cottages stand around it, each with its own garden. Around both are some 600 acres of vines and olive groves in the Chianti Classico.

The wedding happens in the garden and the courtyard, with the Tinaia behind them as the room that makes the whole plan safe.

Reached by a double flight of steps beside the villa, and laid out in three parts. Box parterres and clipped spheres come first; then, behind a hedge of holm oaks, the statues of the four seasons above a lawn of lemon trees in terracotta pots; then the lemon house and a holm-oak bower. The welcome drinks go here, at sunset, with Siena across the valley. The symbolic ceremony goes here too.

Gravel, the long ochre front of the villa and the stone of the Fattoria on the other side. On a warm evening we prefer dinner here to any room on the estate.

The old wine-vat hall, restored with vaulted ceilings and terracotta floors. It seats 100 and holds 120 for dancing, and it is the room the party moves into after dinner.

The Grey Hall seats 80 and holds 120 for drinks, and the band can play there instead of in the Tinaia. The villa’s sitting room, decorated with 17th-century frescoes, takes the aperitivo in bad weather but not the party.

Between the olive groves a lane of cypresses leads down to the pool, which looks straight across at Siena.

It is where the wedding weekend spends its afternoons.

A Villa Catignano wedding starts from €150,000, and for optimal results we recommend budgeting €250,000 all-in for 60 to 100 guests.

Villa Catignano lets the villa, the Fattoria and the cottages together, and four nights is the normal minimum. Four nights for everything come to just over €24,000.

The villa for four nights and the rest of the estate for three come to just over €20,000, and that is the shortest stay accepted in July and August. Outside those two months, three nights for everything run just over €18,000.

The rate is the same at 40 guests as at 86. A weekend stay checks out on the Monday.

The Tinaia, the Italian garden and the courtyard are hired for the wedding day on top of the stay, at less than half their list rate when the accommodation is taken. Rooms for the other dinners of the weekend are hired by the four-hour block at €500 and close at eleven. The gardens and terraces cost nothing extra.

The caterer is brought in, with its own chefs and staff. Breakfast can be served in the villa’s living rooms from €16 a head for a classic Italian breakfast to €29 for a brunch, booked for every guest with a minimum of thirty. The music-rights tax is a few hundred euros for the wedding day.

The garden and the courtyard are the plan, and the indoor rooms are the answer to a bad forecast.

The rain decision can be left until ten on the morning of the wedding. The Grey Hall then costs nothing for the aperitivo or the party, and the frescoed sitting room is available for drinks at €700. Dinner moves into the Tinaia, which seats 100.

The Tinaia’s hundred sets the indoor plan. For a larger wedding the estate has the ground for a marquee, and we put it into the first budget rather than the last week.

Up to 86 people sleep on the estate, across three kinds of house.

The main villa sleeps 26 to 30 in eight apartments. La Maestà is the couple’s, and the others carry names such as Baronessa and Quinto Settano. These are the large rooms with painted and frescoed walls, and we give them to the families.

The Fattoria holds thirteen apartments and studios for 26 to 36, and six cottages around the estate take 18 to 20 more. At 100 guests almost the entire wedding wakes up on the hill.

Villa Catignano stands on the Strada Comunale di Catignano, in the comune of Castelnuovo Berardenga, on a cypress-shaded hill eight kilometres north-east of Siena.

Siena centre is 22 minutes by road and Ponte a Bozzone, with its hairdressers and beauticians, five. Castelnuovo Berardenga is 22 minutes and Radda in Chianti 28.

Florence Peretola is the nearest airport, an hour and 26 minutes, with Florence itself an hour and 19. Pisa is two hours and 14 and has the broader choice of direct flights from the UK. Bologna is the same distance. Rome Fiumicino is three hours and 18.

This is a family estate that lets itself whole, and the details are domestic rather than hotel.

Two in the morning, booked two weeks ahead.

Music runs until two in the Tinaia or the Grey Hall when the whole property is taken, and one more hour costs €200. The villa fixes the finishing time two weeks out, so we decide the hour in the plan and never on the dance floor.

The caterer is ours to bring.

Catering at Villa Catignano is brought in. The villa suggests caterers, and we choose the one whose menu and service suit the weekend, then set its working area where the walk to the courtyard is shortest.

Breakfast is booked by February.

The villa serves breakfast for the whole party or not at all, and it needs the order by the first of February in the year of the wedding. We put it in the first budget so the date does not pass unnoticed.

July and August mean the longer stay.

In high summer the villa is taken for at least four nights, with the rest of the estate for three. We use the extra night for a welcome dinner in the Italian garden, which costs nothing to hire and is the evening guests remember.

Magic Day plans weddings at Villa Catignano from the first conversation to the final farewell. The villa’s hire covers the estate, the apartments and the wedding rooms, and stops there. That leaves the caterer, the civil ceremony at the comune in Castelnuovo Berardenga or Siena, the flowers, the band, the transfers from Florence and Pisa, and the allocation of 86 beds across a villa, a farmhouse and six cottages. We hold the guest list against the Tinaia’s hundred, put the marquee into the first budget for anything larger, book the music hour two weeks out and send the breakfast order before February.

We plan weddings at Villa Catignano for 40 to 100 guests. Tell us the dates you are considering and how many people are coming, and we will tell you what the weekend comes to.