Crillon le Brave wedding

The village of Crillon-le-Brave takes its name from Louis de Berton de Crillon, the soldier of the Wars of Religion remembered as “le brave”, and it stands on a hill at the foot of Mont Ventoux.

The hotel opened at the top of it in 1989, in the Maison Roche beside the church, the village’s old presbytery and school, and grew house by house into nine, joined by cobbled lanes and stone stairs. Maisons Pariente, the family-run collection of Patrick Pariente and his daughters, has owned it since 2018.

Crillon le Brave holds a Michelin Key, the Guide’s distinction for hotels.

Its kitchen is Thomas Lesage’s: Provençal, bistronomic, and built on what the local farms and markets bring in.

With the hotel taken whole, the wedding has the village to itself, and the day moves from the terraces to the restaurant and down the stone lanes between them.

The terrace of the Salon Madeleine, on the old stones below the houses, with the view running out to Mont Ventoux. It takes the ceremony for up to 80, and the cocktail after it.

The village’s own church square, at the top of the hill, for a ceremony among the houses. A tent covers it, or the Madeleine terrace, if the weather turns.

The hotel’s restaurant, with a terrace facing the vineyards and the mountain. It seats up to 80 for dinner, with room for a dance floor and a live band.

On the ground floor of the Maison Roche, with a fireplace, for 25 inside and 30 on its terrace. It turns into the party room with a DJ once dinner is over.

A small terrace over the vineyards and the mountain, for a cocktail of 30 at sunset.

The pool sits on its terrace below the houses, and the Spa des Écuries, the old stables under stone vaults, brings Tata Harper treatments to the morning of the wedding.

Forty-three rooms and suites, for 80 guests, spread across nine village houses and each laid out as its house was built, with antique furniture and windows over Mont Ventoux. Eight of the rooms are new in 2026.

The suites run from junior suites of 48 square metres to the Signature Suite Ventoux of 80, and several have a double bathtub facing the view.

We give the Signature Suite to the couple and the two-bedroom suite to a family travelling together.

With the hotel taken whole, every guest sleeps in the village, which is the point of a wedding here.

Crillon le Brave stands at the top of the village of Crillon-le-Brave, in the Vaucluse, at the foot of Mont Ventoux and fifteen minutes from Carpentras. Bédoin is seven minutes away, Château de Tourreau twenty, Avignon thirty-five and Gordes forty, on a clear road.

Avignon-Provence is the nearest airport, 40 minutes by road, and Marseille Provence the larger, about an hour and twenty away. Nice is three hours off.

Avignon TGV, 45 minutes by road, is two hours and forty minutes from Paris by train.

Crillon le Brave is taken whole for three nights, from €140,000, depending on the dates.

• All forty-three rooms and suites for three nights, with breakfast, lunch and dinner
• The restaurant and the spaces, the pool, the fitness room and the concierge
• Service and taxes

The drinks are priced on top, and the gala dinner, four courses or five, starts at €95 a head. The decoration and flowers beyond the restaurant’s own, the tablecloths, the ceremony chairs, a tent for the terrace in case of rain, the music, the DJ and the photographer are brought in.

A Magic Day wedding at Crillon le Brave starts at €350,000 and lands near €500,000.

Eighty is the number, three times over. The terrace takes 80 for the ceremony, the restaurant 80 for dinner, and the hotel sleeps 80. We build the guest list to it, because at 80 the whole wedding sleeps in the village and walks to dinner.

Book the tent with the terrace. The Madeleine terrace needs a tent if the weather turns, and it is not in the privatisation. We book it with the date, so the rain plan is already standing in the budget.

Bring the music, and the waiver. Music runs indoors until one with the hotel taken whole, and until three with a waiver. The hotel has no DJ of its own, so we book the band and the DJ and ask for the waiver at the contract.

Use the three nights. The privatisation includes every meal from breakfast to dinner, so the welcome dinner and the Sunday lunch are already in it. We schedule the three days around the village, with a morning in the spa and an afternoon at the pool.

Crillon le Brave gives a wedding a whole hill village facing Mont Ventoux, forty-three rooms, a kitchen with every meal of the weekend and a hotel team that knows the lanes. What it leaves to the couple is the wedding itself: the flowers, the decoration, the music, the photographer and the rain plan for the terrace.

That is a planner’s work, but in a village hotel where every guest sleeps on site, the three days are most of it.

Magic Day plans weddings at Crillon le Brave from the first conversation to the final farewell.