24 August 2026
A destination wedding is rarely just about one day. When family and friends travel to Tuscany to celebrate with you, some of the moments you remember most may happen before the ceremony begins or after the last song has played.
A long dinner on the evening everyone arrives. A quiet morning overlooking the countryside. An aperitivo at sunset with friends who have travelled from different parts of the world. Breakfast the next day, when everyone is still talking about the night before.
This is the idea behind a wedding weekend in Tuscany: turning the celebration into a two- or three-day wedding experience, with time to welcome your guests, enjoy the destination together and let everything unfold at a more relaxed pace.
Rather than concentrating every moment into a single day, a wedding weekend gives you something surprisingly precious: more time together.
A wedding weekend brings several moments of the celebration together over the course of two or three days.
Rather than asking guests to arrive for the ceremony and leave shortly afterwards, couples can create a series of occasions around the wedding itself. This is particularly suited to destination weddings, where many guests may have travelled from another country and are already planning to spend several days in the area.
You may also come across the term wedding weekender. It describes essentially the same idea: a wedding designed as a complete weekend experience rather than a single-day event, bringing together moments such as a welcome dinner, the wedding itself and a farewell brunch or breakfast.
There is no single formula for a wedding weekend. It can be as simple as these three moments or include additional experiences designed around the couple, their guests and the destination. The aim is not to fill every hour with activities. Quite the opposite: one of the pleasures of a destination wedding weekend in Tuscany is having enough time to enjoy the setting and each other’s company without rushing from one appointment to the next.
When guests are travelling hundreds or even thousands of kilometres to attend your wedding, spending only a few hours together can feel surprisingly short.
A full weekend changes the rhythm of the celebration.
Instead of trying to speak to everyone during the reception, you have several opportunities to spend time together. Guests who have never met can get to know one another over dinner the night before. Families can settle in. Friends from different periods of your lives can finally meet without the formality and excitement of the wedding day itself.
By the time the ceremony begins, everyone already feels part of the occasion.
For couples planning a destination wedding, a wedding weekender can make the celebration feel less like a single event and more like a shared experience of Tuscany.
Before thinking about dinners, activities and schedules, start with the practical side of the celebration.
Consider where your guests will be travelling from and when they are likely to arrive. International guests may appreciate some time to recover after their journey, while others may decide to turn the wedding into a longer stay in Tuscany.
Then ask yourselves a simple question: which moments do we genuinely want to share with everyone?
Perhaps it is a welcome dinner, the wedding itself and breakfast the following morning. Perhaps you would also like to include another meal or a relaxed experience together.
Just as importantly, decide what you do not need to organise.
Guests will appreciate having time to rest, explore the surroundings, sit by the pool or simply enjoy the property. A wedding weekend should give everyone more time, not create the feeling that they need to be somewhere every hour.
Accommodation and transport should also be considered from the beginning. When several events take place over multiple days, keeping guests close to the venue can make the entire experience considerably easier and more relaxed.
Once the main priorities are clear, you can begin to shape your wedding weekend timeline.
There is no fixed itinerary, but for many destination weddings a simple three-day rhythm works beautifully. A 3 day wedding in Tuscany might begin with the arrival of your guests and a welcome dinner, leave the second day entirely to the wedding, and end with a slow breakfast or brunch the following morning.
The first day should feel easy.
Guests are arriving, checking in and discovering their surroundings, perhaps after several hours of travelling. Give them time to settle in before bringing everyone together later in the day.
A welcome aperitivo or dinner is often all that is needed.
It is the first real moment of the wedding: glasses being raised, introductions being made and the excitement of seeing everyone finally in the same place.
The atmosphere can remain wonderfully informal. Good food, local wine and a long table overlooking the Tuscan countryside can set the tone for everything that follows.
The second day is the heart of the weekend.
And because everyone has already arrived, something changes: the day does not begin with guests finding their way to the venue or greeting one another for the first time.
The celebration has already started.
There is time for a slower morning before the ceremony, followed by the aperitivo, dinner and evening celebrations. The Tuscan landscape becomes part of the day naturally — not simply a backdrop for photographs, but the setting in which everyone has already been living and celebrating together.
The morning after the wedding rarely needs an elaborate programme.
In fact, keeping it simple is often what makes it special.
A late breakfast or brunch gives everyone an opportunity to come together once more, exchange stories from the previous evening and enjoy a quieter final moment before suitcases appear and departures begin.
For many couples, this becomes one of the most enjoyable parts of the entire weekend precisely because there is nothing left to organise or anticipate.
The wedding has happened. Everyone can simply enjoy being together.
For a destination wedding, guests need a little more information than simply the date and time of the ceremony.
Once the main events have been decided, share the outline of the weekend early enough for guests to organise flights, travel and accommodation. Make it clear when they should arrive, which events are planned for everyone and when the celebrations are expected to finish.
The finer details can come later.
Closer to the wedding, you can share a more complete wedding weekend itinerary with timings, dress codes, transport arrangements and any other useful practical information.
Keeping it clear and relatively simple will also help guests understand something equally important: when they have time to themselves.
A venue for a wedding weekend has a different role from a location designed primarily for a ceremony and reception.
You are not only choosing where you will get married. You are choosing where much of the experience surrounding the wedding will happen.
Couples looking for full weekend wedding venues should therefore think beyond the ceremony space. Is there somewhere to welcome guests on the first evening? Can different areas of the property give each moment its own atmosphere? Is there space for a relaxed breakfast the following morning? Can the couple, family or guests stay on the property?
Privacy can also make a significant difference. Having a property reserved for the celebration allows the atmosphere to continue between the organised moments, without the sense that everyone needs to leave as soon as an event ends.
Accommodation can transform the experience even further. When family and friends are staying close by, there are fewer transfers to coordinate and more opportunities for the spontaneous moments that never appear on an itinerary.
Coffee together in the morning. An unexpected drink before dinner. Conversations that continue long after everyone was supposed to go to bed.
For a destination wedding, these moments can become just as meaningful as the ones that were carefully planned.
One of the greatest reasons to plan a wedding weekend rather than a single wedding day is the opportunity to experience more of the destination itself.
And in Tuscany, you do not need to organise very much for that to happen.
A dinner prepared with local ingredients, an aperitivo as the sun goes down, a walk through the countryside or an afternoon by the pool can give guests a genuine sense of place without turning the weekend into a programme of activities.
In the Val d’Orcia, rolling hills, historic villages, vineyards and long country roads naturally invite people to slow down.
Leave some room for that.
An unscheduled afternoon might become the moment guests explore a nearby village, open another bottle of wine together or simply spend a few hours doing absolutely nothing.
The destination does not need to be squeezed into the wedding itinerary. Give it enough space, and it becomes part of the celebration on its own.
With three days available, it can be tempting to fill them.
Try not to.
A three-day wedding does not mean three consecutive days of scheduled events. Leaving space between the main moments gives guests time to rest, explore or simply enjoy being in Tuscany, particularly after travelling a long way to be there.
Instead of asking how many activities you can fit into the weekend, think about which moments are truly worth sharing.
A beautiful welcome. The wedding itself. A final morning together. Perhaps one or two experiences in between.
The luxury of a wedding weekend is not having more things to do.
It is having more time: time to celebrate, time to enjoy the surroundings and time to be with the people who have travelled to share this moment with you.
Set in the countryside of the Val d’Orcia, Locanda in Tuscany offers a setting particularly suited to a wedding weekender, where the wedding and the stay can become part of the same experience and the celebration can extend naturally beyond the ceremony itself.
Couples can celebrate their wedding at Locanda in Tuscany surrounded by the landscape of the Val d’Orcia, using the different spaces of the property for the various moments of their celebration. From welcoming family and friends to the wedding day itself, each part of the weekend can find its own setting and rhythm.
The possibility of staying at the Locanda is particularly suited to a destination wedding. Instead of gathering for just a few hours, couples and their guests can share the days surrounding the celebration, wake up in the Tuscan countryside, meet again over breakfast and enjoy the time they have travelled to Tuscany to spend together.
For guests arriving from abroad, this also makes the experience feel less like travelling to attend a single event and more like being part of a shared stay in Tuscany.
Discover more about weddings at Locanda in Tuscany, the setting and the possibilities for celebrating in the Val d’Orcia.
A wedding may have one date on the invitation, but the memories do not have to fit into a single day.
