Transportation is one of the easiest parts of a destination wedding in France to underestimate. A venue may be only 20 minutes from the nearest town on a map, yet that does not mean 80 international guests can easily get there—or get back at 1:30 a.m. A château may have parking but an entrance a full-size coach cannot navigate. A hotel may look close to the venue, but spreading guests across several properties can turn one simple shuttle route into three. For many destination

Planning a wedding in France from the United States is not simply ordinary wedding planning carried out from another time zone. You are coordinating a wedding in a different legal, financial, transportation, hospitality, and vendor environment while most or all of your guests are making an international trip. The good news is that you do not need to solve every France-specific detail at once. The decisions have an order. Your approximate guest count affects the venues that wo

Choosing where to get married in France is not simply a question of whether you prefer lavender fields, vineyards, the Mediterranean coast, or a château near Paris. Your region affects the kind of venues you will find, how guests reach the wedding, where they stay, how much transportation you may need, what a multi-day celebration can look like, and how practical an outdoor wedding will be at different times of year. You also do not need to choose a region before you understa

Yes — but for many international couples, getting legally married in France is more complicated than having a wedding in France. Here’s how the French civil marriage rules work, when foreigners may qualify, and why many destination couples choose to complete the legal marriage at home and hold their wedding celebration in France. France makes a relatively clear distinction between getting legally married in France and having your wedding in France. You can rent a château in P

A practical 18-month planning timeline for international couples — from choosing your region and venue to guest travel, transportation, vendor coordination and the final wedding week Planning a wedding in France from another country is not simply a local wedding with international flights added to the itinerary. You are coordinating a venue you may visit only once before the wedding, vendors working in another country, international payments, guest accommodation and transport

A practical guide to comparing venue hire, accommodation, catering, coordination — and the costs that may still be outside the quote A practical guide to comparing venue hire, accommodation, catering, coordination — and the costs that may still be outside the quote A French château wedding package can mean very different things. At one property, the price may primarily cover exclusive use of the château and its reception spaces. At another, the package may also include guest

How to Make the Entire Wedding Trip Easier for Your Guests A destination wedding in France is rarely just one day. Your ceremony may last thirty minutes, but for many guests the experience begins months earlier with a flight search and continues through several days of airports, trains, unfamiliar roads, hotels, wedding events and travel home. That changes what “guest experience” means. Beautiful flowers, a thoughtful welcome and an excellent dinner all contribute to the cele

A Practical Guide for Destination Couples Finding beautiful wedding vendors is easy. Finding the right vendors for a destination wedding in France is much harder. When you're planning from the United States or UK, you may be comparing suppliers in another country, working with unfamiliar package structures, French contract terminology, different tax treatment, travel charges, and services that overlap in ways that aren't immediately obvious. One florist may quote flowers. Ano

Choosing your wedding venue in France is one of the biggest decisions you will make during the planning process. Not simply because it determines where the wedding happens, but because the property you choose can shape almost everything that comes afterward: where your guests stay, how they get home after the party, which caterers you can hire, whether dinner can happen outside, how much equipment needs to be brought in, when the music has to stop, and what happens if the wea

If you're planning a destination wedding in France from the United States, one of the first questions you'll probably ask is also one of the hardest to answer: How much does a wedding in France actually cost? You can find examples below €30,000 and celebrations costing well over €150,000. Those numbers are not necessarily contradictory. A 20-person wedding in the Dordogne, an 80-person château wedding in Provence, and a three-day celebration on the French Riviera are fundamen

Planning a destination wedding in France is not simply a matter of choosing a beautiful château and then finding vendors to fill it. When you are planning from the United States or another country, decisions that seem separate are often connected. Your guest count affects which venues are realistic. The venue determines accommodation and transportation needs. Its catering rules affect the budget. Ceremony timing affects photography, dinner, dancing and potentially the venue's