How much does a wedding at Finca La Batllia cost?

A weekend hire with the beds inside it

The record for Finca La Batllia gives a starting price of €4,700, and in the venue's own words that is a hire of the property for the weekend, sleeping 32 people. The minimum stay is two nights, so the published figure and the shortest possible booking are the same thing. For that money you have the house and the whole of its 178 hectares to yourselves: the record lists full exclusivity and makes a point of there being no other properties nearby. A swimming pool, a licensed bar, a sound system, a bridal changing room and car parking are on the features list, and both children and pets are welcome.

The house itself was rebuilt to look as a Catalan farmhouse should, with stone walls and the vaulted ceilings the region is known for, and then finished inside with parquet and the kind of fittings the record calls luxury. The venue describes the space as one you can decorate and customise to your own theme, which is the other half of its pricing model: it is a shell with beds, and what fills it is up to you.

You bring the caterer, the DJ and the florist

What the €4,700 does not include is any of the suppliers. The venue says so directly: you choose the catering, the DJ, the florist, the photographer and the planner, and the owners will point you to the professionals they rate. There is no in-house kitchen, but the record does publish the figures it expects those suppliers to come in at: catering from €90 per person and drinks from €50 per person. The €90 plate is among the lowest in our Barcelona collection; the €50 drinks figure is higher than at several of its neighbours, and the two should be read together.

Because the suppliers are yours, so is the leverage. A couple who negotiate a sharper menu or run a simpler bar move the total more here than they would at a venue with a fixed in-house package. The no-curfew feature matters for the same reason: the party ends when you and your DJ decide, not when a licence does.

At 40, 80 and 130 guests

The rows below add the published hire to the published per-head catering and drinks, at the three guest counts that bracket the finca's own range. They leave out the other suppliers, any beds beyond the 32 in the house, and transport up the mountain.

Even at the 40-guest minimum, the per-head lines together are larger than the hire, and by 130 the hire is a small part of the whole. The finca is, in effect, a low fixed cost with the real spend decided by who you hire to feed people. The budget calculator adds the photographer, the flowers and the music to rows like these.

Thirty-two in the house, sixty more at the farm

The house sleeps 32, and the venue's answer for the rest of the list is a neighbouring farm, La Coromina, which it says can take up to 60 more. Between the two there is room for most of a wedding at the lower end of the finca's range, and for a list near 130 the hotel recommendation list and the record's note that local accommodation is nearby cover the remainder. That is a different proposition from a Costa Brava estate with 20 beds and a town full of hotels at the gate: up here, the weekend is spent together or it is spent driving, and the venue is clearly built for the first.

For a long weekend of this kind the guide to three-day wedding weekends compares the Spanish estates that take the whole party for several nights, and the guide to venues with accommodation lists every house in the collection that sleeps the wedding party.

No licence, but a Romanesque church

Two ceremony settings are in the record. The first is the grounds and gardens, for an outdoor ceremony with the valley and the Puigsacalm beyond. The second is an 11th-century Romanesque church at Falgars, a few minutes from the house, which the venue offers for a religious ceremony. Finca La Batllia is not listed as licensed for marriage, so a ceremony on the estate is a symbolic one; for most couples who are not resident in Spain that changes nothing, because the binding civil ceremony is done at home in any case. The church is a real option for a Catholic wedding, with the paperwork that entails. Our guide to how to get married in Spain covers both the religious and the symbolic routes.

Up the mountain from Girona

The nearest airport by straight line is Girona (GRO), roughly 34 km away. The finca sits at 980m in the Pre-Pyrenees, looking over the Puigsacalm and the forests of the Garrotxa, and the road up is the last leg of every guest's journey. For a list arriving from abroad, plan for Barcelona as the main airport, Girona as the nearer one, and a hire car or a coach for the final climb. Car parking is on the features list. The altitude is also worth a line in the invitation: evenings at 980m are cooler than on the coast, even in August.

Catalan houses hired with a stay

The finca belongs to a group of Catalan houses whose published hire is really a weekend with beds. The four below price that way too, at a range of hire figures and bed counts, and each takes a different view of how big the wedding can be.

• Capellades · Barcelona

  Masia Font de la Reina

  up to 300 guests · sleeps 25 · 2-night minimum · from €3,000 · catering €122 a head

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• Castellnou de Bages · Barcelona

  Mas Bosc

  up to 180 guests · sleeps 20 · 2-night minimum · from €6,500

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• La Selva del Camp · Barcelona

  Mas del Sord

  up to 100 guests · sleeps 30 · 2-night minimum · from €8,000

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• Arbúcies · Barcelona

  Can Riera de la Pineda

  up to 350 guests · sleeps 18 · 2-night minimum · from €9,500

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Masia Font de la Reina at Capellades is the cheapest at €3,000 with two nights for 25, and the only one of the four with an in-house plate, at €122 a head; it takes up to 300. Mas Bosc is €6,500 with two nights for 20 and a ceiling of 180. Mas del Sord is €8,000 with two nights for 30, the closest to La Batllia on beds, but tops out at 100 guests. Can Riera de la Pineda at Arbúcies, to the south, is €9,500 with two nights for 18 and takes up to 350. None of them sits at 980m with 178 hectares and no neighbour, and none publishes a plate as low as €90.

The Barcelona wedding cost guide covers every priced venue in the region, and venues by budget puts the Spanish collection in bands. For a list near the 40 minimum, the guide to small and intimate venues is the one to read beside this.

The couple it is built for

Finca La Batllia is for a couple who want a mountain weekend rather than a day, who are happy to choose their own suppliers and take the savings that come with it, and whose list sits between 40 and 130. It rewards a wedding that treats the house as home for two nights and lets the party run as late as the DJ will play. It is the wrong choice for a very small wedding, which the 40 minimum rules out, and for a couple who want an in-house kitchen and a fixed package. The venue collection shows each house's figures together, and an enquiry through us puts your date to the owners without commitment.