Fashionable Castle Weddings – Say “I do” in a fairytale chateau
Saying "I do" in a European castle is as fashionable as carrying the latest Louis Vuitton handbag for today’s Hollywood celebrity. According to BRIDES magazine destination weddings are a thriving business with 16% of U.S. brides choosing them last year, up 400% ten years ago.
Marrying in a castle means "becoming part of a fairytale," says Mindy Weiss, Eva Longoria’s wedding planner “You're walking into a chapter of a romance novel." Apparently the Material Girl Madonna (Skibo Castle in 2000) and Spice Girl Victoria Adams (Irish castle wedding in 1999) are credited with heightening interest in "castle weddings" with pomp and circumstance.
Last autumn, the wedding of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes inspired many a bride to put a castle wedding on her wish list.
Interest in the Odescalchi Castle has soared since Tom and Katie held their wedding there. Skibo Castle has a waiting list with hopeful brides paying a $40,000 initiation fee prior to a wedding booking.
It is expected that Eva and Tony’s wedding on the auspicious 7th July 2007 at Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte will only fuel the trend. When a celebrity wedding in an exotic location makes headlines people see it and want to copy it.
While the price tag for a celebrity castle wedding often runs well over a $1 million your typical chateau wedding can be done for far less. European castles are being booked by non-celebrities in droves.
According to Brides editor in chief Millie Martini Bratten, “The average U.S. wedding costs $27,850”. The 2006 average price tag of a destination wedding was $25,800, plus travel and hotel costs. Away-from-home weddings can be cheaper, because there are typically are fewer guests to wine and dine. The guests for a hometown event average 165 and 47 for an overseas location. However, a destination wedding at a luxury lodging attended by 30-40 people might run $30,000-$40,000 a day, not including airfare.
Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte was created by Nicolas Fouquet, then finance minister to Louis XIV and opened on August 17, 1661. For the King to witness such applause going to someone else, to visit a home more luxurious than his old palaces and a magical garden, were trials for his self-esteem that were hard to endure, and they fuelled Louis XIV’s desire to destroy Fouquet. He was arrested two weeks later and never left prison.
Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte is said to have inspired Versailles and is no stranger to over-the-top festivities. The chateau hosted the wedding of Indian steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal's daughter, claimed to be the most expensive nuptials of all time at a reported $55 million.
Typically three weddings a year are held at the chateau. Renting the facilities for five hours will set you back upwards of $47,596. Eva and Tony have contracted a two-day rental so that the massive crew of construction workers, decorators and security guards could get everything perfect for the big day. Eva’s lavish wedding will be splashed on the pages of OK! magazine for a reported 2 million dollar exclusive deal which will help cover the costs of their nuptials. You do not need to be able to sell your wedding photos for 2 million to have a French fairytale wedding.
Anyone, especially non-celebrities can rent a chateau and get married in France and have a fairytale chateau wedding of their dreams