Villa Baulieu wedding

Villa Baulieu was built in the 17th century as a grand family estate, on foundations of volcanic basalt. In the 18th century the architect Vallon remodelled it as the Italian-style château it is today, and its core has not changed since 1805.

It stands inside the crater of Provence’s only volcano, where vines have grown since the Greco-Roman era, and the Château Beaulieu estate around it still makes its wine, picked by hand in September and October. The estate also keeps a truffle grove of 800 trees and a hundred beehives.

The house opened to guests in 2012 under the 17th-century spelling of its name, and it is an Airelles house now, like Château d’Estoublon in the Alpilles.

The house and its park are the wedding’s for three nights, and the day moves from the vines to the gardens and back to the house.

The ceremony goes among the vines, with the Alpilles and the Sainte-Victoire on the horizon.

The dinner goes on a long table laid out beside the French gardens, for up to 350, with the château behind it.

Beyond the gardens, the 17th-century park was given the features of the Romantic era: a maze, marble fountains, a hidden grotto and a temple d’amour, with four antique fountains and three ponds fed by the estate’s natural springs.

The Orangerie, with its arched windows, and the shaded courtyard hold the smaller meals of the weekend, the welcome dinner and the brunch, with the dining room of the house indoors.

A stone-paved pool, a hammam, a tennis court and a pétanque court, and the vineyards, almond groves and truffle patches to walk through between the events.

Twelve rooms and suites, for 24 guests, from 30 to 75 square metres, each decorated in the style of a different period and named for a figure of local history, from Bérangère d’Alamanon to Pierre Vincent d’Agoult.

All twelve go with the privatisation, with butlers, daily housekeeping, a private chef and a concierge, and breakfast, soft drinks and the estate’s wines for those staying.

We give the house to the couple and the families.

The house cannot sleep a large wedding, so the rest of the guests stay in Aix, half an hour away, or in the villages around, and come to the estate by car.

Villa Baulieu stands on the Château Beaulieu estate, on the road between Rognes and Le Puy-Sainte-Réparade, north of Aix-en-Provence. Rognes is ten minutes away, Aix under half an hour, Lourmarin half an hour and Gordes an hour, on a clear road.

Marseille Provence is the airport, 50 minutes by road. Nice is two and a half hours away.

Aix-en-Provence TGV, 35 minutes away, is three hours from Paris by train, and Avignon TGV an hour and a quarter.

Villa Baulieu is taken privately, for three nights, at €140,000.

• The house and its twelve rooms for 24 guests, and the gardens for events of up to 350
• Butlers, daily housekeeping, a private chef and a concierge
• Breakfast for those staying, with soft drinks and the estate’s wines through the stay

The wedding’s own events, the welcome, the dinner and the farewell, are not included. The caterer, the design, the flowers, the lighting, the music and the transfers are brought in, and the estate welcomes the suppliers the couple chooses.

A Magic Day wedding at Villa Baulieu starts at €350,000 and lands near €500,000.

No end time, so plan the last hour. The estate sets no time limit on the party. We schedule the cars back to Aix for the hour the couple chooses, with drivers who know the roads through the vines at night.

Choose the caterer first. The wedding’s meals are not in the privatisation, and the estate welcomes the couple’s own caterer. On a weekend of three dinners that is the biggest choice after the venue, and we make it early.

Twenty-four beds, so the families stay. The house sleeps the couple and the families. We hold rooms in Aix for everyone else before the date is announced.

Take in the harvest. In September and October the grapes are picked by hand, and a wedding then can give its guests a morning in the vines with the estate’s vintners.

Villa Baulieu gives a wedding a 17th-century house in a volcano’s crater, a Romantic park, twelve rooms with a staff of their own, and a party with no end time. What it leaves to the couple is the wedding itself: the caterer, the design, the flowers, the music and the guests’ way back to Aix.

That is a planner’s work, and on an estate that welcomes any supplier, choosing and running the team is most of it.

Magic Day plans weddings at Villa Baulieu from the first conversation to the final farewell.