Château de Sannes wedding

The story of the estate begins in 1603, when Jean de Tisati, a parliamentary officer from an old Aix family, bought the lands of Sannes from the lord of Ansouis and built a bastide there. His son Melchior gave it a chapel in 1661, and around 1679 a French garden, with terraces, a great basin and a fountain before a balustrade.

The Saqui-Sannes family, who held it for three centuries after, left their arms on the wrought-iron gate at the end of the avenue of plane trees, two intertwined S under a baron’s crown.

Lord and Lady Hamlyn restored the house, the Bergerie and the gardens in the late 1990s. The Gattaz family bought the estate in 2017 and brought its vineyard back, with a new winery in 2020 and organic wines since that harvest.

Its weddings are run with Roland Paix, the Provençal caterer, which counts the château among the venues of its own collection.

The estate is the wedding’s for the weekend, and the day moves from the magnolias to the pool and down to the pond.

The ceremony goes under the century-old magnolias, a few steps from the château.

The cocktail goes around the pool or on the château’s terrace, with the vines and the wooded hills beyond.

A movable orangery of more than 300 square metres, set by the estate’s pond with the vines behind it, for a dinner of up to 200.

Melchior de Tisati’s garden of the 1670s, with its terraces, its basin and its fountain, and the setting for the photographs between the ceremony and the dinner.

The estate’s old farm, on a rise behind the château, with a vaulted salon of a hundred square metres around a fireplace and a heated pool. On Sunday it hosts the brunch, with its pool open to the wedding until five.

Eight bedrooms come with the weekend, for 17 guests: six in the Bergerie and two in the guest house made in the château’s old stables.

The château’s own seven double rooms, on two floors each with its own salon, are taken by the night on top, and they go to the couple and the families. With them, the estate sleeps 31.

The estate cannot sleep a wedding of a hundred or more, so most of the guests stay in Pertuis, Lourmarin or Aix, and come to the estate by shuttle.

Château de Sannes stands at Sannes, on the southern side of the Luberon regional park, on the road in from Pertuis. Ansouis is eight minutes away, Pertuis ten, Lourmarin a quarter of an hour, Aix-en-Provence just over half an hour and Gordes three quarters of an hour, on a clear road.

Marseille Provence is the airport, just under an hour by road.

Aix-en-Provence TGV, 40 minutes by road, is three hours from Paris by train, and Avignon TGV is an hour and twenty away.

The estate is hired for the weekend, from Friday at five to Sunday at five, with the eight bedrooms of the Bergerie and the guest house: just over €40,000 with VAT from June to mid-September, and just over €30,000 in May and from mid-September to mid-October.

• The estate, its gardens, the pool and the Bergerie, from Friday at five to Sunday at five
• Eight bedrooms for 17, with daily housekeeping, a housekeeper and a site manager
• The Bergerie and its pool for the Sunday brunch, until five

The château’s seven rooms are taken by the night. The wedding’s food comes from Roland Paix, the estate’s caterer, at just under €140 a head for a hundred guests or more, with the tableware, the linen, the service and the soft drinks included, and the wine and the bar on top. The design, the flowers, the lighting, the music and the shuttles are brought in, and the estate can arrange a private chef for the welcome dinner, security and transfers from the airport.

A Magic Day wedding at Château de Sannes starts at €250,000 and lands near €350,000.

A hundred is the floor, two hundred the ceiling. The caterer’s formula is priced for a hundred guests at least, and the estate takes two hundred at most. We design the dinner in the orangery for a guest list inside that range.

Take the château for the nights. The weekend includes the Bergerie and the guest house, and the château’s seven rooms come by the night. We book them for the couple and the families as soon as the date is held.

Keep Sunday for the Bergerie. Its pool is the wedding’s until five on Sunday, and the brunch there is the gentlest way to end the weekend.

Plan the shuttles with the rooms. The estate sleeps 31, so most guests stay in the towns around. We schedule the shuttles from Pertuis, Lourmarin and Aix against the hour the evening ends.

Château de Sannes gives a wedding a bastide of 1603 in the southern Luberon, a French garden, a pond with an orangery beside it, and a caterer who serves until four. What it leaves to the couple is the wedding itself: the design, the flowers, the light, the music, and the rooms and shuttles for everyone beyond the estate’s 31 beds.

That is a planner’s work, and for a wedding where most guests sleep elsewhere, the logistics are most of it.

Magic Day plans weddings at Château de Sannes from the first conversation to the final farewell.