Château de Villette wedding

The château was built in the 1660s for Jean Dyel, comte d’Auffay, a former ambassador to Venice, to plans attributed to François Mansart, and finished after Mansart’s death by his great-nephew Jules Hardouin-Mansart, who went on to build Versailles for Louis XIV. With a park attributed to André Le Nôtre, it has long been called Le Petit Versailles.

The Grouchy family held it from 1750, and on 28 December 1786 Sophie de Grouchy married the philosopher Condorcet in its chapel, with Lafayette as their witness. Her brother Emmanuel became one of Napoleon’s marshals.

The château has been a classified historic monument since 1942. A bombing in August 1944 destroyed the chapel and the orangery, both were rebuilt at once, and the park was restored in 1948.

In Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, Château Villette is the home of Sir Leigh Teabing, and the 2006 film was shot here.

Its present owners bought it in 2011 and had the decorator Jacques Garcia restore the interiors, and The Heritage Collection, which also runs Villa Balbiano on Lake Como, lets it for weddings and events.

The wedding has the court, the parterre and the park, and the day moves from the front of the house out to the water.

The court before the château, its lawns edged with clipped box and Mansart’s pedimented façade behind the couple, takes the ceremony.

On the garden front a French parterre opens onto the park, 75 hectares of woodland with two lakes and a cascade. A ceremony can go on the parterre as well, and the evening can end over the water with fireworks.

The chapel where Sophie de Grouchy married Condorcet, for a ceremony indoors.

The orangery takes the cocktail, and the drinks if the weather turns.

Dinner for up to 200 goes in the Glasshouse, hired on top of the rental. The château’s own rooms seat 85.

The Music Salon, the dining salons and the Bibliothèque, with the octagonal salon in the rotunda on the garden front, are furnished with the house’s collection of Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI pieces, bought at Sotheby’s and Christie’s. They open to a wedding by arrangement, at a supplement.

The pool, lit at night, is for the day after the wedding, and the lakes have boats for rowing and fishing.

Above 200 guests, the château’s approved tent company raises a marquee in the park or along the avenue before the house.

Seven suites in the château, each decorated by Jacques Garcia, furnished with period pieces from the house’s collection.

Six double suites, for 12, come with the rental. The seventh, a single, is added on top, with five rooms in the Wing and three lofts in the Chemistry building, and with all of them the château sleeps 29.

We give the couple and the families the suites, and the wedding party the Wing and the lofts. The château cannot sleep a wedding of 150, so everyone else stays in Paris and comes out by coach.

Château de Villette stands at Condécourt, in the Val-d’Oise, inside the regional natural park of the Vexin français. Paris is forty-five minutes by road on a clear run, Auvers-sur-Oise twenty-five, Saint-Germain-en-Laye half an hour, Versailles thirty-five minutes and Monet’s garden at Giverny a little over forty.

Paris Charles de Gaulle is the nearest international airport, fifty minutes by road, and Orly an hour. Private aircraft land at Pontoise–Cormeilles, twenty minutes away, or at Le Bourget, an hour.

Meulan-Hardricourt, on the line from Paris Saint-Lazare, is eight minutes from the château by road, and Cergy-Préfecture, on the RER A, under twenty.

The château is hired for a wedding of three days and two nights, from ten on the first morning to nine on the third evening, for €105,000 with VAT, with its six double suites. It can also be taken for a single day, without the suites.

• The château’s grounds, the park and the pool, for the three days
• Six double suites in the château, for 12
• The wedding itself, for up to 200 guests

The Glasshouse is hired on top, as are the salons, the rooms beyond the six suites and any hour after one in the morning. The château requires an event package, the power for the event, a toilet attendant, security, and the cleaning after the wedding, all booked through it. The caterer, the lighting and sound, the flowers, the fireworks, the marquee and the hired furniture all come from its approved list, which is how the house protects its collection. The design, the music, the photography, the rooms in Paris and the coaches sit outside the château’s figure.

A Magic Day wedding at Château de Villette starts from €300,000 and lands near €450,000.

Take the château for three days. The weekend rental gives the family the suites, the park and the pool from Friday morning to Sunday evening. We schedule the wedding on the Saturday and keep Sunday for the house party, around the pool.

Book the Glasshouse with the rental. The château’s own rooms seat 85, so a wedding larger than that dines in the Glasshouse, which is hired on top. We reserve it the day the date is held.

Move the music at eleven. The music outside stops at eleven and the party runs on until one. We put the fireworks and the first dance before eleven, and the dance floor under cover after it.

Bring Paris out by coach. The château sleeps 29, and Paris is forty-five minutes away. We run coaches from the Paris hotels at both ends of the evening, timed to the hour the party ends.

Château de Villette gives a wedding Le Petit Versailles: a Mansart house with seven suites by Jacques Garcia, a park of 75 hectares with its lakes and its cascade, and the chapel where Condorcet married. What it leaves to the couple is the wedding itself: the design, a team drawn from the château’s approved list, the music, and the rooms and coaches for everyone beyond its 29 beds.

That is a planner’s work, and for a wedding that sleeps in Paris and dances in the Vexin, the timings are most of it.

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