The Domaine with a Difference: Enjoy a Wedding Filled with Dramatic Dordogne Views and Ancient Castles

The Dordogne region has long been a popular spot for couples planning a French destination wedding and locals alike, so you may well be weighing up different wedding venues in the area and narrowing down your shortlist. 

If that’s you, let us introduce you to a venue that should feature prominently on your list: Domaine d’Essendiéras. Not only is this venue one of the biggest in the entire Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, but it boasts an incredible history and facilities that few other wedding venues in the country can match. 

We’re also more than happy to sing its praises, having worked at this jaw-dropping location and got to know the wedding team here. Let’s just say if you choose this place, you’re going to be in great hands. It's incredible !

But before we run through the possibilities at this fantastic wedding venue and how we’ve supplied our services to create a spectacular wedding, let’s give you a little more background on the venue so you can better understand why we and so many other planners & suppliers love this venue.

The Dordogne Domaine with a Difference

The domaine is such an impressive location for several reasons, yet back in 1999, this place was little more than hundreds of acres of farmland and dilapidated buildings. Fast forward to today, and the transformation has been nothing short of remarkable. 

Everything has been painstakingly restored across the 350-hectare site, with the headline attraction being two historic château, one from the 16th century and one from the 19th century. Together, they form an incredible central hub for the entire estate and, together with their annexes, make a grand courtyard that offers an astonishing background for any wedding ceremony. 

Today, the site boasts:

• Seven farms
• Ten restored labourer's cottages
• A nine-hole golf course
• Formal gardens with ornate pond
• A grand restored outdoor swimming pool
• A tennis court
• Several lakes with beaches and fishing spots
• Equestrian facilities, including a ménage  
• Accommodation for 450+ people (300 beds) 
• Private swimming pools at most accommodation options

In many ways, this domaine is a small town, not an events venue. The sheer size and scale of the place is just immense and leaves you in awe as soon as you arrive. So, if the above sounds appealing to you, let’s walk you through a wedding here and explore what we’ve supplied for a recent wedding held here back in the summer

Getting Married at Domaine d’Essendiéras with the Help of Fête24

So many options are available to you as a bride or groom, so it’s difficult to know where to start when envisioning your wedding celebration here. While you have plenty of choices, our recommendation for the ceremony would be to leverage the incredible outdoor areas surrounding the two grand châteaus. 

The impressive courtyard we mentioned earlier gives you a backdrop of imposing and historic medieval buildings. Or you could take a quiet corner of the formal gardens (which are also HUGE, by the way) and set up some chairs and a formally-adorned wedding arch as your ceremony focal point & we can supply you with one of our Bose S1 pro wireless speakers and Shure SM58 wireless microphones for ceremony proceedings & this way there is no need to worry about any power issues.

Of course, there are indoor options too. Chat with their in-house wedding team to evaluate all the available ceremony spaces and see what grabs you. 

Moving onto the cocktail hour, again, it makes sense to leverage one of the incredible green spaces offered in and around the châteaus. Perhaps an area you decided to forego when choosing a ceremony location. For instance, you could have the ceremony in the formal gardens and then the cocktail hour in the grand courtyard, or vice versa we have supplied a few different AV setups here & all options work.  

Regarding the reception, we recommend one of their purpose-built event spaces. When we worked here providing full event production and backline hire for the evening wedding reception, we were in one of these locations (attached to the golf clubhouse reception), which was incredible. It featured resorted stone walls, wooden beams, & a modern glass orangerie that provided the perfect location for the live band (which was a ceilidh band from the UK). We really enjoyed this event, the band was amazing to be honest. 

The other great thing is these spaces (and this one in particular) offer you a blank canvas to make it your own. We helped by supplying wireless uplighting around the outside of the building, which transformed the ambience. We then supplied and installed over 100 metres of fairy lighting, which we hung from the amazing wooden beams inside. 

We then switched our attention to the bulk of our work, which focused on providing the technical infrastructure for the live entertainment. This involved supplying a d&b Audiotechnik Q series PA system (two Q7 midtops & a pair of Qsubs), 5 ways of Sennheiser G4 IEM’s, a 88 key Nord Stage 3 keyboard, Midas M32R mixing desk with DL32 stage rack, a DW drum kit, plus guitar & bass amps by Markbass & Marshall.

We provided an audio technician to support throughout the event, too, so don’t think that we just set everything up and disappear. We can be on hand throughout proceedings if you need us to be. We’ve worked in the events industry for just shy of 20 years, so we’re more than well-versed in mixing live music performances. 

Call Fête24 Today to Discuss How We Can Help With Your Wedding

While there’s no doubting how incredible this venue is, you will need help from local suppliers to take your wedding concepts from mere ideas to reality. 

We’re familiar with the venue, we’re based just 1 hour & 30 mins from Domaine d’Essendiéras, we can provide everything from supplying backline for your live band or maybe you are looking to hire a stretch tent with a dance floor or a simple sound system setup with a DJ package & lighting setup. 

You can contact us 7 days a week on +44 (0)7 66 42 02 11 Monday to Sunday from 08:00 until 20:00 to talk dates, equipment, and production possibilities, we look forward to hearing what you’ve got planned.