Mountain-top country house for intimate weddings in Girona: Mas Huix

The house was Ca l'Huix long before it was Mas Huix, and the Huix family has worked this forest estate since records begin in the 11th century. Cork oaks, chestnuts and pines paid the bills, and the stone aqueduct that watered the fields still stands. In 1877 Salvi Huix was born here. He became bishop of Lleida and was beatified in 2013, and the family chapel keeps his memory. Local lore adds a night in the bandit years when his grandmother, tied up by masked trabucaires, prayed to the Virgin and felt the ropes give way. In 2011 Adjutori and Marta Huix opened the house to guests, and Marta still runs it.

You're in La Selva, the wooded county between Girona and the Costa Brava, up a private asphalted track that climbs 4 km from the Sant Hilari road. Santa Coloma de Farners, a spa town with bakeries, supermarkets and a castle on the hill above it, is 10 km and about 20 minutes below. Girona's airport is 29 km away, Girona itself 45, and Barcelona a little over 100. Up here, though, there's nothing in view but forest, ridgelines and the Selva plain running toward Girona. That isolation is why couples put this one high on their list of where to get married in Spain.

Santa Coloma de Farners is a spa town, and the springs are still working: the Magma thermal center is 12 km from the house, and the historic Termes Orion baths sit just outside town. The Guilleries hills around you are cork-oak and chestnut country, with Sant Hilari Sacalm, another old spa town, 21 km to the west. Camiral Golf & Wellness, host of the 2031 Ryder Cup, is a 31 km drive. The house itself runs on spring water from the mountain, and the estate's marked trails lead straight from the gate into the woods.

Girona is the obvious day out: 45 km away, and its old town of stone lanes and cathedral steps fills an afternoon. The Costa Brava beaches at Lloret de Mar, Blanes and Tossa de Mar are around an hour's drive, close enough for a swim the day after the wedding. Barcelona is about 115 km down the motorway, and Figueres with its Dalí museum roughly 80 km north. Many of our couples turn the stay into a week, guests peeling off in cars for a day and coming back up the mountain for dinner. It's a good shape for an intimate wedding in Spain.

Nobody gets bored on the mountain. A 10-hole mini-golf course winds through boulders and planting below the drive, and a fenced court takes five-a-side soccer, basketball and volleyball. There's pétanque, table tennis, billiards and foosball, a playground with swings and a wooden playhouse, and marked hiking trails through the estate's own woods. The pool is 5 by 10 meters, fenced, with a shade pergola and loungers alongside. Groups often start the week with a games tournament to get both families talking. Yoga sessions and a painting workshop with a local artist can be booked in advance.

Fly into Girona-Costa Brava, 29 km away, and you'll be at the house well within the hour. Barcelona El Prat is the bigger hub at roughly 130 km by road. Whatever you drive, navigate to Santa Coloma de Farners first: sat-navs that aim straight for the house send you over the mountains through Sant Hilari. From town, the last 4 km is a paved forest track that climbs for about a quarter of an hour. Cars, vans and minibuses of up to 14 seats manage it, a full-size coach doesn't. We book the minibus shuttles and taxis for day guests.

Eleven bedrooms sleep up to 30, and every one has its own bathroom, which guests mention more often than the views. Ten are named after Catalan herbs: Sàlvia, Poliol and Til·la on the ground floor, then Farigola, Espígol, Romaní, Camamilla, Malva, Menta and Marialluïsa upstairs. Each has a double bed, and singles are added to suit your group, so families and friends can share. Whitewashed carved headboards, terracotta floors and radiators for the cooler months keep the rooms simple and warm. Two cots and high chairs are there for the smallest guests.

The bridal suite is new and set apart from the guest rooms, in a wedding wing that's opened only for celebrations. It has a 1.80 m bed and its own bathroom, plus a 50 m² open room with a toilet next door, so the whole party can get ready together without tripping over each other. A stone staircase leads straight down from here to the pergola lawn, which makes for a short, private walk to the ceremony.

You have three spots to choose from. The family chapel, terracotta-red with a bell gable and a round window, seats 25 and isn't consecrated anymore, so it hosts symbolic ceremonies of any faith or none. The lawn below the house has an iron-arched pergola and a stone dome, dressed with greenery and white roses for vows in the open. And the terrace works too, with the Selva plain as your backdrop. Legal marriage isn't registered on site, so most of our couples do the paperwork at home and say their vows here, as foreign couples marrying in Spain usually do.

Dinner moves with the weather and the light. On a warm evening it's on the 200 m² terrace in front of the house, one long table under a canopy of string lights, with the plain turning pink below. The 100 m² porch by the pool has a timber roof, stone pillars and a built-in barbecue, and seats around 40 under cover. Inside, the hayloft's dining room and the farmhouse's own dining room each take 40. Celebrations run to 50 guests, and the estate is yours alone, one wedding at a time.

There's no house caterer, so we will arrange a caterer for you. The kitchen is fitted for outside chefs, with two ovens, two dishwashers, gas burners and a big paella pan and burner, and the estate keeps a list of local caterers and private chefs it trusts. You choose the menu, from Catalan market cooking to a plated dinner, and you can bring your own cake. Bar service for the party is run by a specialist drinks company. Our local wedding planner in Spain has worked with several of these kitchens already and lines up the tasting, the timings and the staff.

The whole estate is fenced, so children roam between the pool lawn, the playground and the mini-golf while the adults finish dinner. The pool is fenced again inside that, and glass is banned around it. Cots and high chairs are provided, and the family rooms take a double plus two singles. Bring bottled water for the little ones: the house runs on spring water from the mountain.

Mas Huix is rented by the stay, from two nights upward and typically four, so a wedding here is a small holiday with a ceremony in the middle. A welcome barbecue on the pool porch, the wedding day itself, a lazy brunch on the terrace and a farewell swim. Guests arrive as two families and leave as one house party. Because you rent the estate rather than pay per head, it's a natural fit for our fixed-price wedding packages in Spain, and we build the week around it.

Rain rarely spoils the day here because so much is covered. The pool porch seats the whole party under its timber roof, the hayloft and the farmhouse dining rooms each take 40 indoors, and the chapel holds the ceremony whatever the sky does. In summer the house cools with fans and thick stone walls rather than air conditioning, and at 560 meters the evenings are noticeably fresher than on the coast. Radiators warm the bedrooms in the cooler months. Couples have moved a rainy wedding entirely under cover here and still eaten outside.