Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte

Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte receives seminars, study days, conferences and general meetings for up to 100 people, and private lunches, dinners, galas and receptions for 2 to 200 guests. The château stands at Maincy in Seine-et-Marne, near Melun, at the heart of a 500-hectare estate with its formal French garden.

Seminars and company events

Working sessions take place in a dedicated room or in the gardens, with a video projector, a screen, tables, chairs and a paperboard. The estate runs its own team-building formats in the grounds. Le grand jeu de l'Oye is a live-action game in the gardens. Un pour tous, the Musketeers' rally, takes 10 to 150 participants for about 1 h 30. The Rallye Le Nôtre is a walking rally through André Le Nôtre's gardens, and Mission Forêt is a half-day nature activity that ends with a barbecue. A seminar can therefore combine a morning of work, an activity in the park and a dinner in the château. A dedicated events team of three people handles corporate projects.

Weddings and receptions

Private dinners and receptions use the château's state rooms: meals in the Salon des Muses and the Antichambre d'Hercule, receptions in the Grand Salon, and dinners in the outbuildings for some formats. The formal garden can be dressed for the evening, with candlelight and fireworks as options, and guests can arrive by helicopter. Galas and marriage proposals are among the formats the estate lists. The official pages do not describe a wedding offer, so check with the events team before planning one.

Catering

Catering, sound, lighting, fireworks and flowers are booked from a list of approved suppliers selected by the estate. You choose within that list rather than bringing your own caterer, which keeps the logistics of a dinner in a protected monument in experienced hands.

History and setting

Nicolas Fouquet, superintendent of finances to Louis XIV, commissioned the château in 1656. Louis Le Vau designed the building, Charles Le Brun the interiors and André Le Nôtre the gardens, a team the king later employed at Versailles. On 17 August 1661 Fouquet gave a celebrated fête for the king here. Three weeks later he was arrested, and the château passed through several families before Alfred Sommier bought and restored it in 1875. His descendants, the Vogüé family, still own and run the estate. Vaux has been the setting for more than 150 films and series, which says something about how its rooms and gardens read on camera and in event photographs.

Getting there

Vaux-le-Vicomte is about 55 km south-east of Paris by motorway, which makes a day seminar possible without an overnight stay. By train, Melun and Verneuil-l'Étang are the nearest stations, the latter served from Paris Gare de l'Est with a shuttle to the château in season. Coaches can bring larger groups directly to the estate. There is no accommodation on the estate, so residential groups stay in hotels around Melun or Fontainebleau.