Get married in the chapel of a frescoed villa near Lucca: Villa Michaela

Virginia creeper covers the villa's south front and the tall end wall above the pool, green in June and turning red by late September. Inside it feels like a home rather than a hotel. Painted ceilings, gilt mirrors and brocade armchairs sit alongside walls of painted plates and a kitchen with ceramic hens along the cupboard tops. The family describe it as a blend of Tuscan and British taste, and that's exactly how it reads.

There has been a house here since the 15th century, but the villa you see took shape in the early 1800s under the Nottolini family. Lorenzo Nottolini, the architect behind Lucca's aqueduct, gave the chapel its neoclassical front, with the Annunciation carved into the arch above the door. His family later opened it to the village as a public chapel with its own priest. Every March 25th Vorno came up the lane for a feast and a procession of lights. The Rhodes bought the estate in 1985 and restored the frescoes room by room.

Vorno is a small village in a green valley south of Lucca, and the villa sits at its head against the wooded slope of Monte Zano. The pines start right behind the pool. Lucca's Renaissance walls are about a quarter of an hour by car, and the village square with its bus to town is two minutes on foot. From the farmhouse terrace you look out to the Apuan Alps, the marble mountains that supplied Michelangelo.

The Via Francigena, the old pilgrim road from Canterbury to Rome, passes the gates. Lucca is the obvious morning out: rent bikes and ride the walls, or visit Puccini's birthplace. Pisa's tower is 19 km away, Florence 80. The Versilia coast begins half an hour west, with Torre del Lago and Viareggio the nearest sand and Forte dei Marmi a little further up. For a quieter evening, walk 25 minutes down the valley to Lo Scompiglio, a restaurant with its own vineyards. Getting married in Italy works best when guests have this much to do between events.

Pisa is the airport to fly into. The venue puts it at 20 km and half an hour by car, with direct flights from across Europe. Florence is 76 km if the connections suit you better. The villa arranges transfers from both, and taxis will run guests back up the valley after a dinner in Lucca. There's parking for 30 cars inside the gates, and the bus from the village square runs to Lucca's center and its station.

Seventeen bedrooms sleep up to 39 across two buildings. The main villa has twelve, ten of them en suite, plus a second-floor dormitory with four beds for children and teenagers. Casa Una, the estate's original farmhouse 30 meters away, has four doubles and a triple, an Aga in the kitchen and its own terrace with a 200-year-old pizza oven. Three bed and breakfasts in the village take any overflow. Dogs are welcome too, up to six of them, so nobody has to stay home.

The bridal suite has a painted neoclassical ceiling and an arch through to a dressing alcove hung with floral chintz, with room for hair, makeup and a photographer at once. Breakfast is served in the Limonaia, the old lemon house turned kitchen, or out in the lemon garden. Since everyone is already sleeping in the house, the morning stays slow and there's no convoy to organize.

Two choices, both inside the walls. The Oratorio dell'Annunziata is consecrated and seats 60 under stucco reliefs and a painted altarpiece of the Annunciation, cool on a hot afternoon, with a grand piano for live music. Or say your vows on the lawn for up to 70, with the Apuan Alps beyond the pines. The villa is one of eleven on the Comune di Capannori's list for civil weddings, so the registrar comes to you and the marriage is legally binding. Our wedding planner in Italy assists with booking the slot with the town hall and filing the paperwork.

Cocktails and canapés for up to 100 happen in the lemon garden, where potted citrus trees ring a two-tier cast-iron fountain, or up on the terrace. Dinner is under the long timber pergola beside the pool: vines climbing the posts, paper lanterns and festoon bulbs overhead, terracotta underfoot and one long table for up to 80. Speeches happen there too, as the string lights come on across the garden. From mid-October to mid-April dinner moves indoors to the chandeliered dining room for up to 44.

The villa's own kitchen cooks the wedding dinner, and the menu is Tuscan through and through. Think tordelli lucchesi with slow-cooked ragù, pappardelle with wild boar, oven-baked sea bass or lamb with rosemary and Marsala, then panna cotta or tiramisù. You pick one dish per course, with vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free versions of each and a children's menu included. Waiters serve at table, half a bottle of wine per guest comes with dinner, and the cake can come from the local pasticceria to your design.

Dancing starts on the lawn and runs until midnight, which is as late as Italian law allows outdoors. Then the party moves down into the soundproofed room beneath the villa and carries on into the small hours. An open bar with a barman follows dinner, and a gelato cart, a live band or fireworks can be added. Sunday is a pool party from the wood-fired pizza oven, so the weekend has a second act.

This is an easy place to bring children. The second-floor dormitory takes four of them, cots can be set up for up to three infants, and the children's menu comes with the dinner. Outside there's a trampoline on the Casa Una lawn, a children's pool beside the big one, table tennis and giant Jenga. Babysitters can be booked for the evening, so parents make it to the dance floor.

A wedding here is a long weekend, not a day. Guests arrive on Friday afternoon, swim, and sit down to welcome cocktails and pizza or pasta from the wood-fired oven. Saturday morning they take the bus into Lucca while the villa is dressed; the ceremony is late afternoon, then drinks, dinner and dancing. Sunday is a pool-side barbecue or a long Tuscan lunch, and Monday is breakfast together and goodbyes. That rhythm is why our wedding packages for Italy suit a place like this.

A wedding here always means the whole estate for three nights: villa, farmhouse, chapel, pool, tennis court and party room, with no other guests and no other couple's event. Two-night bookings are possible Monday to Thursday, or between mid-October and mid-May. The family take on only a small number of weddings a year, so the date you hold is yours alone. Winter dates come with a discount on the venue fee.