/ The estate
A 260-hectare estate above Lançon-de-Provence
The Bastide d’Astres is an 18th-century Aixois manor on a 260-hectare truffle estate, fifteen minutes from Salon-de-Provence and twenty from Aix. It is large enough that a wedding never feels crowded into one corner: a tree-lined park of centenarian pines, French gardens closed by a stone balustrade, a pond fed by a small river, and peacocks that wander through all of it as though the day were being held for them.
Inside, the reception hall seats up to 300 under mirrors and period chandeliers, with a Victorian-style orangery beside it. There are five rooms on the estate including two prestige suites, so the morning can start where the evening ends. Outside, a 400 m² terrace runs alongside a 450 m² pool: that terrace is where the cocktail hour lives, and it faces the right way in the late afternoon.
/ Photographing here
How a wedding day at the Bastide d’Astres photographs
The estate gives you four distinct settings within a few minutes’ walk, which is rarer than it sounds. Most venues have one good backdrop and a lot of walking. Here the morning works in the suites, the ceremony sits comfortably in the gardens or by the pond, the cocktail hour belongs on the terrace, and dinner runs under the chandeliers or in the orangery. You are never moving a hundred guests very far, which is what actually protects your timeline.
The light is the argument for a Provence wedding. Through the summer the sun stays high and hard until well into the evening, so the hour I care about most comes late: the park turns gold, the pines throw long shadows across the grass, and the stone of the bastide warms right through. If you want portraits that look like the photographs you have been saving, that is the half hour to protect in your timeline, and I will help you place it.
Weddings here are covered on digital as standard, with film as something couples add on top. When it is added I shoot medium format and 35mm alongside the digital, and it is what gives these images the quality couples describe as timeless rather than dated: soft highlights, real grain, colour that ages well. It also changes how I work on the day, more considered and less machine-gun, which is usually what people mean when they say they do not want to feel photographed all day.
/ Getting there
Travelling to Lançon-de-Provence for your wedding
The estate is twenty minutes from Marseille-Provence airport and twenty from the Aix-en-Provence TGV station at Arbois, thirty-five from Marseille Saint-Charles, thirty from Marseille itself and forty-five from Avignon. For guests flying in, that is about as easy as Provence gets: land, drive half an hour, and be at the pool.
There is parking for 200 cars at the entrance, and the estate has no immediate neighbours, so the evening carries no curfew. In practice that means the party ends when you decide it ends, and it means the late-night photographs I like most, the ones under the pines with the house lit behind, are actually possible.
I travel from Paris for weddings across France and Europe. If you are marrying here and want a photographer who has already stood in this park with a camera, that is the whole reason this page exists.
/ Practical questions
Photographing your wedding at the Bastide d’Astres
Have you photographed at the Bastide d'Astres before?
Yes. I photographed a wedding on the estate, which is why this page can tell you where the light falls late in the day and how the park actually connects rather than repeating the venue's brochure. Knowing a venue in advance means less time spent working it out on your wedding day and more spent photographing you.
Do you travel from Paris to Provence for weddings?
Yes, regularly. I work between Paris and Provence, and I travel across France and Europe for weddings. Provence is a regular part of my year rather than a special trip, and I arrive the day before so the morning starts with me already on the estate.
How much does wedding photography at the Bastide d'Astres cost?
Weddings start from €3,499, with the final figure depending on your timeline and how much of the day you want covered. Every wedding is quoted individually. Full details are on the pricing page, or tell me your date and I will come back with a proper quote.
What time should we plan our ceremony for the best photographs?
For a summer wedding in Provence, later than you think. The light before six in the evening is hard and high, and it flattens everything; the hour before sunset is what makes the park look the way you imagined it. If your ceremony is early, we simply protect twenty minutes late in the evening for portraits: you will not regret it, and you will barely be missed.
Do you shoot film at weddings, or only digital?
Digital is the standard coverage and film is an add-on. If you add it I shoot medium format and 35mm through the day, colour and black and white, running alongside the digital. Either way you receive one coherent gallery rather than two sets of images that look like they came from different weddings.
Can we add a couple session while we're in Provence?
Yes, and I would encourage it. A session the morning after the wedding, or the evening before, is calmer than anything possible on the day itself, and it is often where the photographs couples end up hanging on their walls come from. It can happen on the estate or anywhere nearby.
Tell me about your wedding
Your date, your venue, or just the region you have in mind. We can work out the rest together.
Check your date