Wedding photographer at the Bastide des Adrets
A vine-covered pergola, white linen, and crystal chandeliers in a seventeenth-century house. The sun dropping onto the Estérel hills during the cocktail hour. A sparkler lit too early that nobody regrets.
La Bastide des Adrets is still known to many as the Auberge des Adrets. It is the same place, at Les Adrets-de-l'Estérel, on the border between the Var and the Alpes-Maritimes, about twenty minutes from Saint-Raphaël and Fréjus.
Trained as a press photographer, I make wedding reportages. At the Bastide, that means keeping up with a day that moves from the seventeenth-century rooms to the Estérel hills at cocktail hour, without ever asking anyone to wait.
The estate
A seventeenth-century country house given over entirely to weddings, run by Patrick and Cosima Sialino de Megvinet, with thirty-six years of experience behind it.
Wooded grounds planted with olive trees, fruit trees, jasmine, rosemary, lavender and lemon verbena. Five thousand square metres laid out for the ceremony and for photography, which is rare: most estates have a park, few designed one for this.
Panoramic terraces opening onto the Estérel hills, a pool, a pergola, a night bar. And a kitchen working on site from produce brought back from Provençal markets.
What the roof changes on a wet day
This is the detail that genuinely sets the place apart, and it is worth knowing before you choose a date.
The terraces have a motorised roof and transparent sides. When the sky closes in, the cover extends and the panorama stays. You keep seeing the hills through dinner, which an indoor room never allows.
At an outdoor venue, the wet-weather plan is almost always a visual retreat as well. Here it is not. That is why I recommend this place to couples who want an outdoor wedding but are marrying in May or October.
Light and aspect
The estate backs onto the Estérel hills, and the sun sets to the west, behind the massif. The late light therefore arrives obliquely across the terraces, warm, with the relief behind it.
In practice that means the last hour before sunset is fully usable from the terraces, without leaving the estate. It is a real advantage over lowland venues, where you have to go out to find a horizon.
The park, lower and more densely planted, holds shade longer. It serves the couple session well in high summer, when the terraces turn hot in early afternoon.
How a day is built here
Usually entirely on site. It is a self-contained estate, and the point of a single venue is to remove transfers and dead time.
When the civil ceremony takes place elsewhere, in Saint-Raphaël, Fréjus or Mandelieu, allow twenty to thirty minutes, more in July and August on the Estérel road.
The one trade-off I genuinely ask for is the same as anywhere: setting aside the last hour of light for the couple session, and leaving the cocktail hour at that precise moment.
What happens if it rains?
The covered terraces take over without the day losing anything. For the couple session, if conditions are genuinely poor, we reschedule it for another day, later that week or beyond. You get your images in the light you had in mind.
Frequently asked questions
Are Auberge des Adrets and Bastide des Adrets the same place? They are the same place under two names. Auberge des Adrets is the historic one, La Bastide des Adrets the current one, and many couples still search for the old name.
Where exactly is the estate? At Les Adrets-de-l'Estérel, in the Var, on the edge of the Alpes-Maritimes. About twenty minutes from Saint-Raphaël, half an hour from Cannes.
Can the whole day happen on site? Symbolic ceremony, cocktails, dinner, couple session and the evening all take place within the same grounds, which is one of the great advantages of the place.
How early does this estate fill? Eighteen months ahead for a summer Saturday, which is early for the Var. It is among the most requested properties in the area, and the photographer is settled in the same breath as the venue.
Do you work with the estate's own suppliers? The estate handles the catering and the on-site coordination. I agree the running order and the timings with them in advance, as I would with any wedding planner.
Tell me about your day, and we will work out together how it is photographed.