About the Château
History
The Château de La Valouze is located in La Roche-Chalais, France, 45 minutes from the city of Bordeaux. Now a wedding venue, the estate formerly belonged to the Durand-Ruel family, who discovered and supported many of Europe’s most famous Impressionist artists in the 19th century.
The story goes like this: In the early 1870s, an entrepreneurial art dealer named Paul Durand-Ruel discovered the Impressionist movement, which at the time was widely criticized and struggling to be accepted in the art world. He immediately realized the potential of the movement and the young group of artists leading it, including the likes of Monet, Degas, Manet, Renoir, Sisley, and Pissaro.
Paul dedicated the rest of his life to building an audience for their work—and he was quite successful at it. Durand-Ruel’s most ingenious move was showing Impressionist works in the United States. He was able to entice an audience of American buyers who bought more Impressionist works than were ever sold in France; causing prices for Impressionist works to skyrocket. As one website puts it, “The ultimate acceptance of the Impressionist movement is largely the achievement of one man: Paul Durand-Ruel.”
The Estate
Situated on 34 hectares of land, the Estate of la Valouze consists of the main Château, two guest houses (the Orangerie and Sisley), a grand ballroom, an outdoor terrace area, a winter garden, an outdoor swimming pool and pool house, 2 tennis courts (unfortunately these are longer usable), jogging and hiking trails, and a park including 3 lakes, dozens of rare/exotic trees (including one of the oldest oak trees in France, estimated to be 400 years old), and a bamboo forest.
As part of our special day, we’ll have exclusive use of the entire la Valouze estate, including the grounds and all facilities!
One important thing to note is that the Château is not a hotel. In terms of amenities/how the venue is run, think of it like an Airbnb—there is no “front desk” or maid service, guests will be expected to keep their spaces tidy, etc.
Explore
Why France? Why a destination wedding? Why Valouze?
One of our favorite things to do is travel together—and whenever we do, we often find ourselves saying things like: “We wish [this family member] was here.” “[This friend] would love this place.” “How much fun would it be to come back here with [this person]?” In the spring of 2022, we were on our first big trip post-pandemic when we stumbled across a wedding at the hotel we were staying at in Italy. From there, the idea was planted. Holding a destination wedding would allow us to do the thing we love the most with the people we loved the most.
But we weren’t totally sure. Would our friends and family really be excited about this plan? We broached the idea with a few of you, and to our excitement, everyone was on board.
From there, all that was left was to decide on the venue, which we ended up finding in the way that everyone our age finds things nowadays… on TikTok. Château de la Valouze was the first venue we found when we decided to do a destination wedding, and in the end, it turned out to be our favorite.
