Getting married in Carthage
Three wedding enquiries reached us in three weeks, from France, from Tunisia and from the Emirates. They all asked the same questions, and those questions deserve a written answer.
The essentials
- Seated capacity
- Roughly 40 per cent lower than standing
- Wet-weather plan
- Written into the contract, with its own capacity and cut-off time
- May and June
- Often reserved a year in advance
- Deposit
- Typically 30 per cent at the time of booking
Seated capacity and overall capacity: two different figures
A venue announcing two hundred people often seats a hundred and twenty at table, with service in the room and a dance floor. Always ask for seated capacity with service, not standing capacity. The gap is around forty per cent.
Ask too whether that figure assumes privatising several spaces. Spread across two terraces, a dinner for a hundred feels like two dinners for fifty.
Bad weather is the question people forget
Carthage is exposed. A terrace facing the bay is magnificent in June and unusable on a windy November evening. Insist that the fallback be written into the contract, with its own capacity and the decision deadline: the day before, that morning or two hours ahead.
Without a written fallback, the evening depends on the weather that day.
The seasons, seen from here
May and June
The best light, long evenings, the sea still calm. These are also the dates that go first, often a year ahead.
September and October
The water is warm, tourist numbers fall and so do rates. The risk of rain stays low until mid-October.
November to February
Low season. This is when full privatisation of a venue becomes affordable, and when winter light on the bay is at its sharpest. You have to accept dining indoors.
What to have quoted, line by line
- Privatisation alone, without catering or drinks
- Dinner, per person, for each option: seated, buffet or standing dinner
- Drinks, as a package or by consumption
- Corkage, if you bring your own wine
- Decoration and music, included or not
- Overtime, beyond the agreed finishing hour
A quote giving one price for everything makes comparison impossible. Ask for the breakdown.
Deposit and cancellation
Thirty per cent on booking is common. What is less common, and worth checking: until what date the deposit remains refundable, and what happens if guest numbers drop by twenty per cent between booking and the day itself. Have the answer put in writing.
At Villa Didon
Three spaces, combined or taken separately: Le Perchoir, Le Light Bar and Le RestÔ. A wedding can stay in one of them, or move from one to the next as the evening goes on.
Dinner is always served indoors, whichever space you choose. Le Perchoir has a retractable, watertight roof: it stays closed most of the time and opens in fine weather. Only the drinks reception can be held outside, on La Proue, the terrace of Le RestÔ, at high tables or seated. So dinner never depends on the forecast.
The capacity of each space, for a drinks reception and for a seated dinner, is listed on the Le Sur-mesure page.
For a working day, the house has a separate room, Le Banquet; that side of things is easier to follow on our LinkedIn page.
Visits are by appointment, and we would rather you came to see before asking for a price. Past evenings are on our Instagram.
