Villa Valentini Bonaparte wedding

The villa stands alone on a rise above the Val di Chiana at Pozzuolo, in the comune of Castiglione del Lago.

That puts it in the province of Perugia, which is to say in Umbria rather than Tuscany, a few kilometres from the border. The estate’s own material describes it as being between the two and that is honest: the landscape is Tuscan, the paperwork is Umbrian, and Siena is an hour away in one direction while Perugia is an hour in the other.

The house is nineteenth-century, formal, apricot-coloured and symmetrical, with a parterre in front of it and a park behind. What makes it a wedding venue rather than a handsome house is what has been built into the grounds: an amphitheatre, an orangery, a temple, an enchanted forest and a marquee that is already standing.

The estate has more distinct ceremony and party spaces than anything else on our Tuscan list, and they are worth knowing by name.

The formal garden in front of the villa, which seats over 200 for a civil or blessing ceremony and is shaded.

A built amphitheatre in the grounds taking 180: 120 seated on the steps and 60 more around the outer ring.

Woodland with a small classical temple inside it, for a ceremony of 80 or for the photographs afterwards.

The orangery takes from 20 to 240 depending on the layout. La Bottaia, beside the pool, holds 150 and is the room the night moves into at midnight.

A Villa Valentini Bonaparte wedding starts from €250,000, and for optimal results we recommend budgeting €350,000 all-in for 100 to 200 guests.

Priced by season and by the number of nights, with VAT included. The summer season runs 15 April to 14 October and takes in the Christmas fortnight; the rest of the year is cheaper.

• Two nights: just under €36,000 out of season, just under €39,000 in summer
• Three nights: just over €40,000 out of season, just over €48,000 in summer
• Six nights: just under €61,000 out of season, just under €74,000 in summer

Two nights is the minimum midweek and three across a weekend.

Sole use of the property and all its indoor and outdoor spaces for the wedding day, every bedroom, and an intercontinental breakfast for 40 guests. The pool, the parking, the wifi, the concierge and a small fitness room.

And the marquee, which has a section of its own below.

All of it comes through the estate’s own catering operation, which also holds the bar and the rental equipment. There is no outside caterer and no outside furniture hire.

The estate requires a minimum of two catering services across the stay, so a welcome dinner or a farewell lunch is part of the arrangement rather than an extra.

The city tax at €3 a head per night, flowers, photography, music and anything the estate’s own rental catalogue does not cover.

A 370-square-metre marquee stands in the middle of the gardens, hung with crystal chandeliers, and it is inside the rental price.

That is worth stopping on, because the wet-weather plan is the single largest hidden cost at most Tuscan venues. An estate that seats 150 outdoors and offers a dining room for 70 is quietly telling a couple they will be hiring a structure, and a structure of this size with lighting and flooring is tens of thousands of euros, two days of build and a decision made under pressure in the week of the wedding.

Here it is already there. It means the rain plan and the sunshine plan can be the same plan, the layout can be fixed months ahead, and the budget does not carry a contingency the size of a small car.

We would use it deliberately rather than treating it as insurance. A marquee you are paying for anyway is a room, and rooms are easier to light than gardens.

Outdoor music is allowed until midnight, and that is a firm limit.

After midnight the party goes into La Bottaia, the salon by the pool, which fits up to 150 and opens onto a terrace that takes the overflow. The brochure does not put a closing hour on it. What it says is that the music runs until the end of the bar service.

That makes the end of the night a commercial question rather than a legal one. The bar is the estate’s, the service is the estate’s, and how long both stay open is agreed in the contract. We fix that hour before signature and price it, because an estate that controls the bar controls the ending, and that is a negotiation to have in the spring rather than at one in the morning.

Fifteen suites sleeping 40, or 50 with extra beds.

Ten are in the Main Villa, on two floors, with the first-floor suites carrying freestanding baths in the bedrooms. The other five are at La Scuderia, the old stable block, done in a classic Tuscan style with one, two and three bedrooms so that families can take a suite between them.

Breakfast for 40 is inside the rate, served as a buffet from eight until ten.

A villa next door is being restored and will add eight rooms and 16 to 20 guests, which would take the estate to around 65 or 70. It is not in the current price list and we would not plan a wedding on it until it is.

The villa is on the Via Laviano at Pozzuolo, in the comune of Castiglione del Lago, in the province of Perugia.

Siena is an hour and ten, Florence city centre an hour and 32, and Lake Trasimeno is a few minutes away.

Perugia is the nearest airport at an hour. Florence Peretola is an hour and 42 and Rome Fiumicino two hours and 42, and between them they carry most of the flights a guest list will actually be booking.

Perugia is small and its route map is thin, so we put Florence and Rome on the invitation and keep Perugia for the guests who can use it. Rome in particular is worth naming, because two hours and 42 minutes from Fiumicino is shorter than most people expect from this part of Italy.

The marquee changes the maths more than the rate does.

Plan inside the marquee from the start.

It is 370 square metres, it has chandeliers, and it is already paid for. Most couples treat an included marquee as a fallback and design the wedding for the garden, which means paying to light two spaces and committing to a decision about the weather. We design the dinner for the marquee and use the gardens for the ceremony and the aperitivo, where rain matters less.

Marry midweek and take two nights.

Midweek the minimum is two nights and at a weekend it is three. In the summer season that is the difference between just under €39,000 and just over €48,000, for the same house in the same week.

The bar decides the ending.

Outdoor music stops at midnight by rule, and La Bottaia then runs to the end of the bar service, which is a contract term rather than an hour. We agree and price it before signature, because the estate owns the bar, the staff and the room, and an unpriced ending is one the venue gets to choose.

Give guests Rome as well as Florence.

Perugia is closest at an hour but flies to few places. Rome Fiumicino is two hours and 42 and has everything, and because this villa sits at the eastern edge of Tuscany the drive north from Rome is far more reasonable than it would be from the Chianti.

Magic Day plans weddings at Villa Valentini Bonaparte from the first conversation to the final farewell. That means the nights and the whole estate, a midweek date priced against a weekend, the dinner designed inside the marquee that is already paid for, the civil ceremony held in the garden rather than at a town hall, the two required catering services turned into real events, the bar hours agreed and costed so the night has an ending, and the right airports on the invitation for a villa that sits on the far side of Tuscany.

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