Chateau wedding in Provence

lmsmith2 - in Province, I would recommend these chateaux for a scenic wedding.

https://chateaudesalpilles.com/

https://www.barrenques-provence.com/ - https://www.barrenques-provence.com/mariages.htm

https://www.baumaniere.com/

Here is a list of other venues in Provence which may assist you to plan a great wedding:

https://www.wildroses.fr/luxurious-intimate-wedding-venues-in-provence/#Bastide-de-gordes-wedding-venue-Provence-near-lavender-fields

Been to Chateau de Alpilles outside of St. Remy.....magical. My first thought was how perfect a wedding would be there!

Jane - I feel It would be a fairy tale wedding like Cinderella at Chateau de Alpilles. The Chateau Le Mas de La Rose https://www.mas-rose.com/fr/mas-luxe-provence which is near Lavender fields is a stunning scenery for a wedding as well.

I have no idea if they host weddings, but I thought the villa used for the Wine Show was very beautiful.

https://www.villarental.com/villas/provence/la-cavalerie/

I would think that the lavender farm would be gorgeous as well....but if you want the lavender to be at full bloom you have to have your wedding in July or August....and the other venues might be beautiful regardless of a time you must depend on.......

It will only be a pretend wedding - and you will have to have had your real wedding before you arrive in France. Even having a pretend wedding in France is illegal unless you are already legally married.

Hi Simon, yes, we're aware that we can be legally married in France. We're planning to be legally married elsewhere. What we want to do in France is 1) spend time in lovely Provence with our friends and family, 2) hold a ceremonial wedding service, and 3) hold a reception dinner.

Could you please give me some more information about ceremonial weddings being illegal unless a legal married has taken place first? Your comment is the first I've heard of this law and I'd like to look into it further. I'm quite surprised that the French police could show up at a chateau and arrest my fiance and I for standing up in front of friends and family and pledging to love one another--but I'm not familiar with French law.

Merci!

https://www.frenchentree.com/french-property/law/legal-implications-of-getting-married-in-france/ and https://www.expatica.com/fr/living/love/french-weddings-a-guide-to-getting-married-in-france-101112/ may help.

Any venue should ask for copies of your marriage certificate before they will book you in for a ceremony.

Hi Simon. Thank you for the links--I took a look, and both seem to cover the technicalities of getting legally married in France. We know we can not be legally married in France and that's not what we're looking to do. We want to hold a ceremony where we can stand up in front of family and say vows--it will look and feel like a wedding but will not be a wedding. Your first post said that that is illegal in France--two people can't "pretend" to get married in France unless they are legally married first. Is that true?

Yup.

I mean you can stand up in front of your family and say you love each other, but you can't have any kind of ceremony

Of course police aren’t going to arrest you, but your French ceremony wouldn’t be recognized as a legal marriage without the civil one preceding.
Simon’s websites are very informative. Not surprising as he works in tourism.

What I pick up is that if you use a French official, you have to present your civil marriage license, which you will want to see if it needs to be translated.

Otherwise, could one of the guests become an officiant on-line and perform the ceremony since it is symbolic? This is so common in the States. Finding a real religious leader in France is difficult as it’s really a secular country with a low level of religious participation. The percentage of people who bother getting married is much lower than the States; some have Pax ceremonies. My Parisian niece, who had her public ceremony in a Loire chateau, searched for months until they found a Protestant minister, had to go to counseling, and then he passed the hat during the ceremony. Much easier if you ask someone in your entourage. Is that possible, Simon?

PS I was civilly married at our town hall in France 43 years ago; hope it was legal. : — §

We have had a couple of requests to organise vow renewals and even that has been difficult because anything more than the ceremony at the Mairie (town hall) seems to be totally outside the French mental image of how the world works.

At least doing the marriage thing the French way means that the issues that surrounded the Jagger/Hall non-divorce aren't going to happen here.

I’m not sure if my daughter’s experience will help, but I hope I can clarify the confusion around getting married in France. My daughter is American, and her husband is French. They had 2 weddings. First they got married in France at the Mairie in the town where our son-in-law was living at the time. The town hall clerk (I guess that’s the correct name) married them. Then we had a lovely multi-course dinner at a nice restaurant afterwards. As I understand it, you have to have a civil ceremony at the Mairie first before you can get married in a church in France, if you wish to have a religious ceremony, too.

A year later they had a religious ceremony (sacrament of matrimony) in the U.S. for family and friends. They met with the priest once before the ceremony. They did not have to go through the marriage preparation program because they were already married, which was a good thing for them since they live in France.

Consider hiring a wedding planner who does the non-official ceremonies. There are several of them. I have been to "official" and unofficial weddings in France. Here is a planner that I have heard good things about: https://www.hautewedding.co.uk/about-the-team/ but have never used them or been to a wedding planned by them. You absolutely can have a party in France that you categorize as a wedding -- I've been to some and they felt like real weddings even though I knew they were not.
Here is a suggested spot for a wedding in Provence: https://www.peyrassol.com/en/your-wedding-at-the-commanderie-de-peyrassol/ but it is about two hours away from the towns you mention.