Villa Lena wedding

Villa Lena stands on a hilltop at Toiano, in the comune of Palaia, in the country between Pisa and Florence.

The estate is a genuine agriturismo: five hundred hectares of woods, olive groves and vineyard around a historic villa and its farmhouses. A biodynamic kitchen garden feeds Osteria San Michele, the estate’s restaurant, and a flower farm grows the blooms for every table.

It is also home to the Villa Lena Foundation, an artists’ residency. Artists from all over the world come to stay and work, and their workshops can be opened to the wedding guests.

Villa Lena is Green Key certified.

A Villa Lena wedding has seven event spaces to use across the hill, and the estate takes 130 seated. We move the day between them: vows behind the villa, the aperitivo among the vegetables, dinner on a terrace facing the hills.

The civil and symbolic ceremony garden, set with Tuscan chairs and a flower arch. This is where we hold the ceremony whenever the weather allows.

The farmhouse at the centre of the estate, whose ground floor takes the ceremony indoors, civil or symbolic.

The biodynamic kitchen garden and the flower farm. We set the aperitivo here, among the beds the dinner came from.

Open terraces on the hill, facing the valley at either end of the day, for the dinner and the speeches.

Two quieter corners of the estate, which we keep for a smaller ceremony or the late part of the night.

The covered pavilion on the estate, held for the rain. With the ground floor of the Fattoria it carries the whole wedding indoors, all 130 guests included.

A Villa Lena wedding starts from €250,000, and for optimal results we recommend budgeting €350,000 all-in for 70 to 110 guests.

The whole estate for two or three nights, from just over €28,000 to just over €56,000 by season and length of stay. Spring and autumn are priced lowest, and late June to mid-September highest.

Every room and villa, with accommodation and breakfast for up to 76 guests, and the basic event equipment: tables, chairs, plates and standard lighting.

For 70 guests across three days, the estate prices a welcome pizza party at €97 a head, the cocktail hour and gala dinner at €256, a three-hour open bar at €80 and a farewell barbecue at €124. With the flowers, the three days come to just under €42,000.

A late brunch is €68 a head, an ice cream cart €700, a champagne tower €20 a head and professional DJ equipment with lights €800.

Arrangements from the estate’s own flower farm for the ceremony, the cocktail hour and the dinner, from €3,000. The catering and the flowers are both the estate’s own, and nothing in either comes in from outside.

Photography, the band, hair and make-up, the lighting design and the transfers. We appoint all of them.

Villa Lena has no music curfew on a two- or three-night wedding stay.

The estate sits alone on its hill with five hundred hectares around it, and a private takeover means an all-night pool party or a DJ set that ends when the dancing does.

We still plan the night with some care. The party goes to the pool or the far terrace once dinner ends, and the guests who want to sleep get the rooms furthest from it.

Seventy-six guests, in around forty bedrooms across the estate, every one of them included in the privatisation with breakfast.

San Michele and the Fattoria are at the centre of the property, recently renovated and each room decorated differently, with eighteen rooms between them. Renacchi farmhouse and Maison Stento are a short walk from the historic villa, each its own Tuscan country house. Renacchi holds five two- and three-bedroom apartments, and the country houses add eight bedrooms more.

The Casetta dell’Amore is the suite kept for the couple.

For a wedding of more than 76, the remaining guests stay in Palaia, ten minutes away, or in Montaione, twenty.

The estate is at Toiano, in the comune of Palaia, in the province of Pisa, between the Arno valley and the Val d’Era.

Palaia is ten minutes away, Montaione twenty.

Pisa airport is an hour and four by road and Florence Peretola an hour and 21. Bologna is two hours and 13 for long-haul arrivals.

Siena is an hour and 21 and Florence city centre an hour and 23, so the days either side of the wedding can be spent in a different city each way.

No curfew, a kitchen that grows its own menu, and a buyout that already holds the rooms.

The privatisation includes the beds.

Villa Lena’s figure includes accommodation and breakfast for 76. Many venues on a shortlist price the hire alone, so we put every option on the same footing before a couple chooses.

Flowers that grow on the hill.

The arrangements come from the estate’s own flower farm, from €3,000 for the ceremony, the cocktail and the dinner. We design around what will be in flower in the wedding week rather than a picture of something out of season.

Use the residency.

Pasta and cocktail workshops, yoga, pottery and painting with the resident artists, truffle hunting and wine tastings fill the day before the wedding. We build the second day around two of them.

Three nights, three meals.

The estate’s own plan runs a pizza party on the first night, the wedding on the second and a barbecue to close. We keep that shape, so the guests eat together on the estate every night of the stay.

Magic Day plans weddings at Villa Lena from the first conversation to the final farewell, for 50 guests or for 130. The estate provides the rooms, the breakfasts, the kitchen, the flowers and the basic equipment for the length of the takeover. The rest falls to the planner: the civil ceremony with the comune of Palaia, the photographer, the band and the DJ, the lighting design, the transfers from Pisa or Florence, and the hotels for the guests the 76 beds cannot take.

What we know from working the estate is the shape of its weekend. Pizza on the first night, vows behind the villa, dinner on a terrace, and a night with no curfew that moves to the pool. We also know the flowers follow the season, and that the Light & Rain Pavilion and the Fattoria are a plan B that seats all 130.

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