Val d’Orcia · Tuscany
A long weekend in the hills south of Siena, and a very long table.
Aperitivo in Pienza on Friday, our wedding among the olive trees on Saturday, a slow brunch on Sunday. We’d love you there for all of it.
Open the invitationTogether with their families
request the pleasure of your company
at the celebration of their marriage
Saturday, the eighteenth of September
two thousand twenty-seven · at half past four
Villa Le Ginestre · Pienza · Tuscany
IThe weekend
Friday · 17 September
7 pm until late
La Terrazza del CorsoCorso Il Rossellino 42, Pienza
Negroni sbagliati, pecorino from the hills and the whole valley turning pink. Come straight from the airport; nobody will mind.
Easy linen · flat shoes for the cobbles
Saturday · 18 September
Garden formal · block heels for the grass
Sunday · 19 September
11 am to 2 pm
The courtyardVilla Le Ginestre, Strada delle Ginestre 7
Coffee, cornetti, eggs from the farm, the pool if you’re brave, and a long goodbye under the fig tree.
Shuttle at 10:30 from Porta al Murello
IIOur story
The short version, for everyone who knows one of us and not yet the other.
2018
Division Street, Chicago
A ramen counter, two empty stools and one umbrella between us. Theo ordered for both of us, wrongly, and Ana let him.
2020
Logan Square
A third-floor walk-up, a fig tree in a pot that never once gave us a fig, and a great deal of bread from a very small oven.
2023
Montepulciano
Ana met Nonna Rina, who fed her four courses and asked when the wedding was. We said there wasn’t one. She said, Not yet.
2025
The fire escape
Christmas Eve. Theo hid the ring in a jar of Nonna Rina’s olives and waited, for a very long time, for Ana to want an olive.
2027
Pienza
Nonna Rina was right. Now comes the best part: the one where you come too.
IIITravel & stays
Pienza sits on a ridge above the Val d’Orcia, two hours from both Florence and Rome. The last stretch is cypress-lined and slow, which is the point.
On the hill · the wedding
Familyby invitation
Fourteen rooms for family and the wedding party. If one is yours, we’ve already told you, probably twice.
Inside Pienza’s walls · 6 min walk to the shuttle
€170a night
Eighteen rooms held for us until 1 May. Quote ANATHEO27 when you book.
Near Monticchiello · 8 min drive
from €240a night
Farmhouse apartments for four to six, with a pool and a very old dog called Brunello. Good for a group of friends.
Bagno Vignoni · 18 min drive
from €210a night
Its own thermal pool, open until midnight. There’s no shuttle from here, so you’ll drive on Saturday.
IVTuscany, slowly
Our favorite places within an hour of the villa, numbered on the map. Times are by car from the wedding.
The town Pope Pius II rebuilt as his ideal city in 1459. Pecorino on every corner, Via dell’Amore and Via del Bacio, and a view south from the walls that stops you mid-sentence.
Ana’s pick · the walls at 7 pm
The tiny chapel in the cypresses from every postcard. Park on the San Quirico road and walk the white road for twenty-five minutes. Go at sunrise.
A village whose main square is a steaming thermal pool. Below it, the hot springs of the Parco dei Mulini are free, open-air and best at dusk.
Vino Nobile in cellars carved under the streets. Theo’s family is from here; mention the Marchetti name and see what happens.
Theo’s pick · lunch, then a nap
A walled village of two hundred people, a summer play the whole town performs, and the best pici we have ever eaten.
Brunello country. Book a tasting, order the ribollita, and make sure someone else is driving home.
A pale stone abbey alone in an olive grove below Castelnuovo dell’Abate. Arrive late in the afternoon, when the light turns the stone to honey.
White travertine falls in the woods and warm water with no ticket. Wear a swimsuit you don’t love; the sulfur lingers.
VRegistry
Truly. Getting to the Val d’Orcia is generous enough. If you’d still like to give something, here are three things that would make us very happy.
The frost of 2024 took forty of the old trees outside Montepulciano. €35 plants a young one, with your name on a terracotta tag. We’ll send you a photo of it every September.
23 of 40 planted
Plant a treeThe honeymoon
The greenest of the Aeolian islands, capers on every wall, and absolutely no schedule.
For the walk-up
A short list at our favorite shop in Chicago: mostly linen, one good knife, and a pot big enough for Nonna Rina’s ragù.
See the listVIRSVP
One reply per envelope, please. Plans change; if yours do, write to Giulia and she’ll update everything.
64of 92 guests have replied so far. We read every one of them out loud.
VIIQuestions
By Tuesday 1 June 2027, using the card above or the paper one in your envelope. We confirm numbers with the villa and the kitchen in early June.
If your envelope says “and guest”, yes, please do. Otherwise we’ve kept it to the names written on it, so everyone fits under one pergola.
We adore your kids, but this is an adults-only weekend, apart from our nieces and nephews in the wedding party. Giulia keeps a list of trusted sitters in Pienza.
Mid-September is usually warm and golden: around 26°C (79°F) by day and 14°C (57°F) after dark. Bring a wrap or a jacket for dinner.
Garden formal: suits without ties are perfect, long or midi dresses, linen very welcome. The ceremony is on grass and the paths are gravel, so block heels or flats.
For the weekend, yes. On Saturday you can leave it in Pienza: shuttles run up to the villa at 3:45 pm and back at 11 pm, midnight and 1:15 am.
Both. Don Paolo will marry us in Italian and English, and there’s a little booklet on every chair with the words, so you can follow along.
During the ceremony, please don’t: Marta, our photographer, has it covered. From the first kiss onwards, snap away.