Manoir de Chivré wedding — Normandy, France

The estate

A place to begin everything.

In the Normandy countryside, Manoir de Chivré is a historic manor standing in its own grounds — stone-framed windows, a shaded courtyard and a facade that needs no dressing, with mature planting and lawns around it. Orchard and pasture make up the country beyond the walls, green and unhurried in the way of northern France. The manor and its grounds are taken privately, so a single wedding has the run of both. The lawns carry an open-air ceremony against the building, the manor holds a bridal preparation suite of its own, and an indoor space is held for weather, which in this part of France is no formality: the day can move between inside and out without the plan coming apart. The house takes a guest list of 200, the buildings and grounds absorbing it without the occasion feeling like a function. Two hundred guests is the upper limit, and the estate is quoted on request rather than from a published rate, so the date and the season shape the figure. No bedroom count is given, which makes accommodation the first question, followed by the seated capacity of the indoor space and the items billed separately from the hire of the house.