Villa Medicea di Lilliano wedding

The villa stands in olive groves at Grassina, in the comune of Bagno a Ripoli, on the first hills south-east of Florence.

It is a Medici villa, formal and symmetrical, with a walled garden in front of it and the city twenty minutes down the road. The estate around it still produces oil and wine, and the names it gives its seasons come from the grape varieties rather than from the calendar.

What makes it unusual among Florence-adjacent villas is a piece of paperwork: the comune of Bagno a Ripoli has designated it an official venue, which means a couple can be legally married here.

The wedding uses the historical villa for one day of a three-night stay, and the gardens around it.

The indoor room, seating 150. It is the wet-weather plan and it is large enough to be the first choice rather than the retreat.

The parterre in front of the villa, where the ceremony and the aperitivo happen, with the olive groves beyond.

The arched walks and the inner courtyard, used for the hours between the ceremony and dinner.

A separate group of villas with a garden of its own, available for a second event at just over €800. Anything held there must end by half past ten.

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

The villa quotes a package rather than a hire: three nights with its sixteen double suites, and one day for the event at the historical villa. Every figure includes VAT.

Midweek, Monday to Thursday, it runs from just under €24,000 in the winter months to just under €30,000 in the shoulder weeks and just under €34,000 in the high season.

A Friday-to-Monday weekend runs from just over €26,000 through just under €33,000 to just under €38,000 across the same three seasons, with the event day falling on the Saturday.

The high season is May to the start of July and late August to early October.

Eight hours, finishing by one in the morning, with five in the afternoon the default start. Setup begins at eight in the morning and the teardown has two hours after the end.

Extra hours are just over €400 each during the day and just over €700 between one and two in the morning. Past two the villa’s approval is needed as well as just over €1,000 an hour, and none of it can be arranged on the day itself.

Security and housekeeping run for the whole event, until the last supplier leaves, for up to 149 guests. Above that a further mandatory charge of just over €700 covers the extra staff.

The catering, the flowers, the lighting, the music and the photography are quoted separately and come through the villa’s own supplier list. A parking attendant becomes mandatory above twenty cars, and fireworks carry a mandatory preparation charge of just over €400 on top of the display itself.

Bagno a Ripoli has made Villa Medicea di Lilliano an official venue for legally binding ceremonies.

The villa’s fee for one is just over €600.

Twenty minutes from the middle of Florence, that is worth more than it first appears. The usual Florence arrangement is a civil ceremony at Palazzo Vecchio or a comune office in the morning and a symbolic one at the villa in the afternoon, which costs a convoy, a translator’s second appearance and the two most valuable hours of the day.

Here the legal ceremony and the wedding are the same event in the same garden. The comune’s own fees, the declaration of intents and the translator are arranged with Bagno a Ripoli alongside the villa’s fee, and we deal with the comune directly.

The event is eight hours and ends at one.

That is the shape of every wedding here, and the hours past it are a published price rather than a negotiation.

One to two in the morning is just over €700. Past two the villa has to agree as well, and the rate becomes just over €1,000 an hour. Extra hours are booked in advance and cannot be added on the night.

That last condition shapes the plan. An hour that has not been booked by the time the band is playing cannot be added at half past midnight, so the decision belongs in the budget rather than in the evening. We put two hours into the first draft and release them if they are not wanted.

Forty-four across the estate’s residences.

The quotation takes sixteen double suites. La Corte villa adds ten guests across five suites with room for two more, and La Torre five villas holding twenty-two with space for ten additional guests on extra beds.

Forty-four beds against 150 seats means most of a full wedding sleeps in Florence. At twenty minutes that is less of a problem than it is anywhere else on our Tuscan list, and it gives guests a city rather than a village.

The villa is on the Via Lilliano e Meoli at Grassina, in the comune of Bagno a Ripoli, in the province of Florence.

Florence city centre is 20 minutes and Siena an hour and 12.

Florence Peretola is 32 minutes by road. Bologna is an hour and 21 and Pisa an hour and 35, both worth naming for guests arriving from outside Europe because Florence is a small airport.

Rome Fiumicino is three and a half hours and is not the route.

The licence is the reason to choose this villa over the others near Florence.

Bagno a Ripoli will marry you here.

Bagno a Ripoli will marry you here, which removes the morning convoy into Florence that almost every other villa within reach of the city requires. One ceremony, one garden, one afternoon, and the legal half costs just over €600.

The hours past one cannot be added on the night.

The event ends at one and the hours past it cannot be added on the night. We put one or two into the first budget and give them back if the couple decides against, because the alternative is a band packing up while everybody is still dancing.

Staffing is included to 149 guests.

Security and housekeeping are included to 149 guests and a mandatory charge applies above it. It is a modest sum, and we cost it into the first budget alongside the parking and fireworks charges, so the plan carries it from the start.

Midweek is about three thousand euros cheaper.

Monday to Thursday is about three thousand euros cheaper than Friday to Monday across the same three nights, and the villa does not usually let the property for a single Saturday anyway.

Magic Day plans weddings at Villa Medicea di Lilliano from the first conversation to the final farewell. That means the three nights and the event day, the legal ceremony arranged with Bagno a Ripoli so the day is not split in two, the extra hours bought before the night rather than during it, the guest list set against the 149-guest staffing line, the suppliers appointed from the villa’s own list, hotels blocked in Florence twenty minutes away, and the parking and fireworks charges costed from the start.

We have worked Florence and Tuscany for years. Tell us the dates you are considering and how many people are coming, and we will tell you what the three nights come to.