Villa La Rondinaia wedding

Lucy Beckett began building Villa La Rondinaia in 1927, on land that belonged to Villa Cimbrone, which her father, Ernest Beckett, Lord Grimthorpe, had rebuilt. Nicola Mansi, the Ravello man who had worked with her father on Cimbrone, designed it and ran the works, and a Ravello stonemason, Francesco Amato, built it.

It stands on the edge of the cliff below Cimbrone, which gave it its name: la rondinaia, the swallows’ nest.

Villa La Rondinaia takes one event a day, and the whole villa and its terraces are given to it.

Gore Vidal bought La Rondinaia in 1972 and lived there for more than thirty years. Tennessee Williams, Leonard Bernstein, Italo Calvino and Princess Margaret were among his guests, and Ravello made him an honorary citizen, though he put it the other way round: “I don’t live in Ravello. I live at La Rondinaia.”

His study is now a small museum, with his desk and his typewriters, and the pool he added for his partner, Howard Austen, is still the villa’s. In the spring of 2023 the house opened to the public for the first time, with the FAI, Italy’s national trust.

The villa is built down the cliff in terraces, and a wedding moves between them: the ceremony on one, the dinner under the marquee, and the party after midnight in the Salotto Italiano.

The villa’s outdoor spaces are the wedding’s from three in the afternoon until midnight, and the house must be clear of the event by ten the next morning. The dinner opens with an aperitif and runs to four courses, the wedding cake, and coffee with limoncello, with the villa’s sommeliers pouring throughout.

The panoramic terrace over the Amalfi Coast, and the villa’s largest setting for a symbolic ceremony, for up to 120.

Two smaller settings for the ceremony: the Terrazza del Preludio alla Bellezza for up to 80, and the Terrazza dell’Inspirazione, over the coast, for up to 20. The villa sets out white chiavari chairs on whichever terrace is chosen, and nothing else, and none of the three has lighting of its own.

A rigid marquee of 280 square metres, with side windows that open, seats the dinner for up to 180. It comes with the event, along with the villa’s own furniture and tableware.

Where the party goes at midnight, for up to 80 guests, until 2am, at a capped volume.

Vidal’s pool, and the setting for a pool party the day after, one of the villa’s own menus along with a welcome dinner, a brunch and a pizza corner.

Six rooms and suites, and the villa sleeps fifteen. A wedding takes all of them: the villa asks for the whole house for two or three nights, with breakfast, a welcome and the luggage looked after.

Two of the suites and the junior suite take a third bed for a child.

The rooms have vaulted ceilings and fireplaces, with balconies over the sea. Everyone else stays in Ravello, ten minutes’ walk away, at Villa Cimbrone above the villa, at Hotel Villa Maria along the lane, or at Palazzo Avino on the far side of the town. We give the villa’s own rooms to the couple and the families, and hold the rest of the list in town the week the date is set.

Villa La Rondinaia is on Via dei Fusco, a lane off the walk from Ravello’s cathedral square to Villa Cimbrone, about ten minutes on foot from the square. The villa itself runs down the cliff below Cimbrone’s gardens.

No car reaches the villa.

Guests walk in along the lane, and the villa’s own porters carry the luggage and the equipment.

Naples Capodichino is the main airport, an hour and a quarter to Ravello on a clear road and an hour and a half as a planning figure. Salerno’s airport is 45 minutes away, and from Ravello it is the nearer choice. For American guests, connecting through Rome or Milan into Naples beats the four-hour drive from Rome Fiumicino.

Salerno station is 35 minutes by road, and Napoli Centrale an hour and five. Both take the high-speed trains from Rome and Milan.

Villa La Rondinaia prices a wedding in three parts: the rooms, the event, and the food and drink.

• The six rooms, for two or three nights, priced by the season
• The event, priced by the number of guests and by weekday or weekend, with the marquee, the furniture and the villa’s staff included
• The ceremony, with a fee of its own
• The dinner at €290 a head before drinks, with the aperitif, four courses, the cake, coffee with limoncello, and the sommeliers
• The open bar, the welcome dinner, the party in the Salotto Italiano and anything else from the villa’s list, each priced on top

The villa supplies no lighting or sound, and no dance floor. The flowers, any decoration beyond the villa’s own, the music and its performance taxes, the transfers and the porters are all extra too.

A Magic Day wedding at Villa La Rondinaia for a hundred guests starts at €250,000 and lands near €350,000.

Light the terraces. None of the ceremony terraces has lighting of its own, and the villa supplies no sound or lighting for the evening, so both come in with the production. We design the lighting for the paths as well as the tables, because every guest walks the terraces after dark.

Midnight, then the Salotto. Music outside stops at midnight, the curfew Ravello’s town hall sets, and up to 80 guests carry on in the Salotto Italiano until 2am. We plan the guest list for the after-party as carefully as the one for the dinner, because the room holds eighty, not everyone.

Fireworks go on a boat. No fireworks or sky lanterns can be let off inside the villa, but the villa arranges fireworks from the sea, and cold fountains instead of sparks.

Everything is approved, and early. The villa approves every supplier and every set-up: suppliers are named a month ahead, and the production, the lighting and the decoration sixty days before. We send the drawings with the first design rather than the last.

Villa La Rondinaia gives a wedding Gore Vidal’s house, its terraces over the Gulf of Salerno, a marquee for 180 and a kitchen with its own sommeliers. What it leaves outside is the production: the lighting, the sound, the flowers, the music, the transfers, and every approval that has to be won before any of it arrives.

That is a planner’s work, and on a cliff where everything is carried in, it is most of the wedding.

Magic Day plans weddings at Villa La Rondinaia from the first conversation to the final farewell.