Getting Married at Mas des 5 Fontaines in Sisteron: The Complete Guide
Mas des Cinq Fontaines, at the Gateway to Provence
The estate sits on a hillside in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, a few kilometres from Sisteron. You reach it by a country lane, then by a gravel drive lined with lavender and cypress. That drive does a great deal for the first impression your guests will form of the place.
The name comes from the five-spouted stone fountain just past the gate. Most couples only notice it during the site visit, and it usually gives me one of the opening frames of the reportage.
This is a mas, not a château. No gilding, no grand staircase. Dry stone, plum-coloured shutters, pollarded plane trees in the courtyard and a round tower closing it off. It is also one of the very few venues in the region where I have never once had to reach for a flash all day.
The Estate in Numbers
| The estate at a glance | Detail |
|---|---|
| Seated dinner | 150 to 160 guests |
| Beds on site | more than 50, across rooms, suites and a dormitory |
| Main room | glasshouse with a retractable roof and walls |
| Location | Sisteron, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence |
| From Aix-en-Provence | 1 hr 15 |
| From Marseille | 1 hr 30 |
| Suppliers | open, no imposed list |
| Curfew | none, no neighbours |
Beds on site change the nature of the party. When a good share of the guests sleep at the estate, there is no shuttle at two in the morning, nobody slips away early, and the next day's brunch still draws a crowd.
The Spaces, One by One
The Drive and the Courtyard
The drive is the first setting and one of the best. Lined with lavender in June and July, it catches the late-afternoon light end on. I use it almost every time for couple portraits, train sweeping across the pale gravel included.
The courtyard is closed off by the main building and a round tower. The plane trees hold a continuous shade through the summer, which makes it the most liveable corner of the estate in the middle of the afternoon. That is where the drinks reception ends up on the hot days.
The Balustraded Terrace
A long paved terrace runs the length of the building, closed by a pale stone balustrade and punctuated with urns. It looks out over the valley. This is where people gather of their own accord, glass in hand, without anyone having to point them there.
One caveat: it stays in full sun for much of the afternoon, and the pale balustrade throws a lot of light back. If you put the drinks reception there before the sun drops, plan for shade.
The Lake
A pool of water below the estate, with a wooden pontoon reaching out over it. Anella and Jarrod held their humanist ceremony there, guests seated facing the water and the hills. It is the finest ceremony spot on the estate, by some distance.
One constraint worth knowing: you get down to it from the courtyard along a sloping gravel path. Warn the guests in heels and anyone who walks with difficulty, and ask the estate what it can offer to get them down there.
The Pool and the Summer Kitchen
A rectangular pool, stone coping, loungers, and a tile-roofed summer kitchen at the end of the terrace. Open views to the mountains.
It is a logistical point too. The summer kitchen bar doubles as the caterer's drinks station: the waiting staff set up there, keep the bottles cool and head back inside without cutting through the party. Raise it early with your caterer, it shapes where the drinks reception ends up.
The pool itself mostly serves the day before and the day after: welcome dinner around the water, Sunday brunch under the summer kitchen. On the day, it makes a pleasant drinks-reception backdrop late in the afternoon, when the water takes the low light.
The Orangery
An unusual room: the walls drop and the roof opens. You were inside, and now you are out. Guaranteed wow moment for your guests, who find themselves dining under the stars of Provence.
It is weather insurance as well. If a storm rolls in, which is nothing out of the ordinary in late summer in the southern Alps, everything closes back up and dinner carries on.
The ceiling carries drop chandeliers and trailing greenery. For photography it is an easy room: natural light late into the evening in summer, pale walls, and nothing throwing colour onto skin the way a stretched marquee does.
The Light, Hour by Hour
The estate backs onto a hillside and is widely exposed. That gives a run of light that stays fairly predictable from one summer wedding to the next.
In the morning, preparations happen indoors, in bright rooms with stone walls. Around the middle of the day the sun is high and the estate gets hard to photograph anywhere but under the plane trees in the courtyard or beneath the vine canopy. That is the lunch slot, so make the most of it.
Late in the afternoon the hillside softens. Then the light drops behind the ridge to the west and the whole estate falls into an even, gentle shade that flatters everyone. It is the best moment for couple portraits, and it is almost always dinner time. So I suggest keeping twenty minutes between the drinks reception and going in to dinner, rather than scheduling a long session in the middle of the afternoon.
Dusk over these hills lasts a long time, far later than in lower Provence. Ten minutes outside between the main course and dessert gives you pictures you will not get anywhere else.
The Details That Make the Place
The estate is furnished with real coherence: wrought iron, old stone urns, a vintage bicycle propped against a tree with a slate reading « bienvenue », wooden signs pointing to the ceremony, the pool and the reception. There is a pétanque pitch in the shade too, which the guests invariably commandeer mid-afternoon.
These are the things I photograph in the quiet stretches, and they are what root the reportage in a place. A room laid for dinner looks like any room laid for dinner. A « bienvenue » slate on a rusted bicycle under an oak in Haute-Provence does not.
A Typical Day at Mas des Cinq Fontaines
Here is the running order I come across most often on site, as a starting point for building your own.
The evening before, the guests staying over arrive in the late afternoon for a welcome dinner around the pool. On the day, preparations from 11 am, a light lunch in the courtyard around one, guests arriving mid-afternoon. Humanist ceremony at the lake around five, drinks reception on the terrace or in the courtyard, in to dinner around half past eight, first dance late in the evening. The party stops when it stops. Brunch the next day under the summer kitchen.
If you are at the town hall in the morning, leave yourself a margin on the way back: the road up to the estate is narrow and a convoy of thirty cars moves slowly along it.
Practical Advice
Saturdays from June to September go roughly two years ahead. If your date is fixed, book early.
The estate imposes no suppliers. It hands you a list of recommendations, teams it is used to seeing work on site, but you keep control of your caterer, florist, DJ and photographer. In return, coordinating all those people falls to you or to your wedding planner, and it pays to lock in delivery times well in advance.
For guests not staying on site, accommodation is in Sisteron and the surrounding valleys, and it fills up fast in high season. A shuttle is worth it if you want the evening to run long: the roads around here are winding and poorly lit.
See Every Photograph of the Estate
I photographed the whole estate outside of a wedding, one July morning, to have a complete site survey: every space, every angle, the empty room, the courtyard, the gardens and the grounds from the air. Those images are gathered in an online gallery. It comes in useful when you are working on your running order or your table plan and want to see exactly what a given spot looks like.
The Estate I Photograph Most
Put simply: no other venue comes round as often in my year. Dozens of weddings a season, for years now, to the point of knowing the place by heart. I know where the light falls at which hour, which corner of the courtyard stays shaded in August, how long it takes to get down to the lake in a long dress.
I have watched it change, too. The orangery has not always been there. Nor has the lake, which was dug and landscaped, and has since become the finest ceremony spot on the estate. Almost every season something shifts: a bed replanted, a space rethought, a terrace reworked. Which is why a site survey from three years ago is worth very little here, and why I keep photographing the place empty between weddings.
Two reportages give a sense of what the day itself looks like. Gelda and Guillaume married here with floral design by Fol'Artmonie and coordination by Repère des Pépites: ceremony outdoors, dinner under the glass roof, a very late finish. See the full story. Anella and Jarrod brought together families from several continents for a ceremony on the lake pontoon. See the full story.
My Mas des 5 Fontaines wedding photographer page sets out how I work here. And if you are still comparing venues, my Bastide de Puget reportage and my Château de Tourreau shoot show the same approach in a very different setting.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where exactly is Mas des Cinq Fontaines?
A few kilometres from Sisteron, in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. Allow 1 hr 15 from Aix-en-Provence and an hour and a half from Marseille.
How many guests can the estate host?
Ideally 150 to 160 for a seated dinner. On top of that there are more than fifty beds on site, across rooms, suites and a dormitory, which is what lets you spread the celebration over several days.
Can you hold a wedding over several days?
It is the norm here: most weddings at the Mas run over three days. Welcome dinner the evening before around the pool, the wedding itself, brunch the following day under the summer kitchen.
Does the estate impose its own suppliers?
Nothing is imposed. The estate gives you a list of recommended suppliers, teams it is used to seeing work on site, and you remain free to choose outside that list.
What happens if it rains?
The reception room is a glasshouse whose roof closes and whose walls retract. Dinner and the evening stay under cover. Only the ceremony at the lake genuinely depends on the weather, so plan a fallback in the courtyard.
When is the best season to marry here?
June and September. The lavender along the drive flowers in high summer, temperatures stay bearable in spring and early autumn, and the end-of-day light lasts longer than in lower Provence. July and August are beautiful but hot, and an outdoor drinks reception then needs shade.
Is there a curfew?
No. The estate stands on its own, with no immediate neighbours, and no noise restriction applies.
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To talk about your wedding at Mas des Cinq Fontaines, your dates, or simply the running order you have in mind, get in touch. I am happy to come out for a site visit ahead of the day.
