Villa Petriolo wedding

Villa Petriolo was a noble residence in the hills west of Florence, and it is a working farm again.

Vineyards, olive groves, kitchen gardens and animals run across 170 hectares of certified organic land, and what they produce goes into the estate’s own restaurants: its Cinta Senese cured meats, its honey, its wines and its oil. The farm buildings around the villa were rebuilt as suites, a spa and panoramic pools, with furniture made by local workshops and cosmetics from the estate’s own production.

Chef Stefano Pinciaroli runs the kitchens. His gourmet room, PS Ristorante, holds a Michelin Green Star for growing its own produce and cutting its waste, and the Osteria di Golpaja cooks Tuscan food the old way.

Villa Petriolo holds one Michelin Key.

A Villa Petriolo wedding takes the whole estate, and the estate closes to outside visitors while it runs. The day moves across the farm rather than staying in one room.

The estate’s two ceremony spaces, dressed by the estate from €420. Civil ceremonies can be held on the estate as well as symbolic ones.

The Bottega is the cocktail bar on the estate’s most panoramic natural terrace, and the place for an aperitivo at sunset. The Aia, the old threshing floor, carries the aperitivo, the dinner or the cake.

The third setting for the wedding dinner, after the Bottega and the Aia: a long table down the cypress avenue. We put a summer dinner under the cypresses whenever the guest count allows it.

The glasshouse and the cellar carry the party after dinner, indoors, where the music can run until two.

The panoramic pools and their bar are reserved for the wedding party. The pool area and the pergola are two of the settings for cutting the cake, and the pools carry a pool-party lunch at €73 a head.

Above 100 guests the estate requires a tent for every day of the stay, in good weather too, up to 140.

A Villa Petriolo wedding starts from €350,000, and for optimal results we recommend budgeting €500,000 all-in for 80 to 140 guests.

Villa Petriolo is let as one thing: the hotel, the spa and the restaurants together. The starting price runs from just under €90,000 for two days between November and March to just under €179,000 for three days between May and September, VAT included.

That covers all 44 suites with breakfast for everyone, technical supervision of the audio and lighting, and minimum spends on the spa and on food and drink that the wedding’s own menus and treatments use up.

Dinner is €220 a head for the aperitivo and three courses with the estate’s own wines, with water and coffee included, or €260 with two of its senior labels. Half a bottle of Petriolo wine per person is inside both.

Nine hours of service are included, with one waiter for every ten guests. A pizza party is €68 a head, a barbecue €85, an Italian family-style dinner €80 and a pool party €73, and the open bar is €19 a head an hour.

The tent above 100 guests, the flowers, the music, the photography and the planning. Corkage on wine brought to the dinner is €31 a bottle, and outside drinks are free during the open bar.

If guests settle their own rooms, the estate allocates them and collects the payments for a fee of just under €5,000, paid by the couple.

From May to September the estate takes three nights at least, and the main event day cannot be the last of them.

A wedding on the Saturday of a Friday-to-Monday stay works. A wedding on the Sunday of a Friday-to-Sunday stay does not.

What that buys is a farewell day. Everyone wakes up on the estate the morning after the wedding, there is a brunch, a pool and a spa, and nobody is wheeling a suitcase past the flowers at nine.

We treat it as part of the design, because a night that nobody uses is the one thing a budget here should never carry.

Outdoor music stops at midnight and indoor music at two.

Below 100 guests that is easy: the party room is already inside, and the night simply moves through the door. Above 100 the dinner sits in the tent, so we bring the band indoors before midnight with a short break, and the second set opens in a room already lit.

The open bar goes with it. The estate staffs it with two bartenders under 80 guests and three above, and we set the hours before the evening rather than during it.

Villa Petriolo has 44 suites sleeping 104, and the wedding takes all of them.

Two Classic Rooms, eleven Junior Suites, seven Premium Suites, five Pool Premium Suites, six Wellness Suites with spa access, and five family suites. Six named master suites run from the 45-square-metre Cantiniere to the 110-square-metre Colombaia.

Two Castelforno private apartments, 150 square metres with two bedrooms each, complete the 44. Every room has thermal and acoustic insulation, air conditioning and handmade furniture.

The whole of the accommodation goes to the couple, or each guest can cover part of their own room. We allocate the suites by family before the invitations go out.

The estate is on the Via di Petriolo at Cerreto Guidi, in the province of Florence, between the city and the coast.

Florence city centre is 50 minutes, Siena an hour and 26.

Florence Peretola is 48 minutes away and Pisa an hour and one. Two airports at about an hour or less is rare in Tuscany, and it lets guests take whichever flight suits them. Bologna is an hour and 40 for long-haul arrivals, and Rome Fiumicino four hours and eight.

The estate runs helicopter tours over Florence, Pisa and Lucca, and we arrange helicopter transfers for guests who want one.

The estate is the venue, the hotel and the caterer at once, and the minimums decide the shape of the weekend.

Spend the spa minimum on purpose.

The spa carries a daily minimum spend in wellness services, and it counts whether or not anyone books a treatment. We schedule massages and the pools into the weekend for the families, so the money buys something.

Under 100, every part of the day gets its own room.

At 100 guests and below the ceremony, the dinner and the party each have a room indoors and the tent never appears. That is where we plan most weddings at Villa Petriolo.

Buffets need the room.

The estate sets food corners up only when at least 80% of the guests will use them. We design the aperitivo around that, so a corner is never laid for half a party.

Use the morning after.

The wedding cannot be the last day in summer, so there is a morning after either way. We build a brunch, a truffle hunt or a wine tasting into it, and let the goodbyes happen slowly.

Magic Day plans weddings at Villa Petriolo from the first conversation to the final farewell, for 40 guests or for 140 under a tent. The estate provides the house, the 44 suites, the spa, its kitchens and its staff, and every plate comes from its own kitchens.

That leaves the tent above 100, the flowers, the music, the lighting, the transfers from two airports and the design of three days with the planner. We know how Villa Petriolo runs: the hotel, spa and restaurant minimums priced together, the wedding never on the last night, the guest list held to the 100-person indoor ceiling where it can be, and the band moved inside before midnight.

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