A honeymoon, a wedding week or an anniversary at the villa

Mauritius is one of the easiest places in the world to marry as a foreigner, and the north has the hotels and the beaches where ceremonies happen. Our guests use the villa as the family house for the week: parents in the master suite, the couple and friends in the three other bedrooms, the dinner before the wedding on the alfresco by the pool, the breakfast after in the garden. The hotels of Trou aux Biches and Mont Choisy, where most ceremonies are held, are five minutes away. The civil formalities for a wedding in Mauritius take a few days of residence and some paperwork; wedding planners on the island handle it, and we can point you to the ones our guests have used.

It is not the obvious choice, and that is why couples like it. Nobody else at the pool, breakfast at eleven on the terrace, a film in the cinema at midnight, a swim with the garden lights on. The master suite upstairs has a stone bathtub under a skylight, a double shower and a dressing room; the other three bedrooms stay closed. In the low season, from May to October, the rate for the whole house is close to a suite in a good hotel, and the privacy is complete.

A private catamaran to Gabriel Island for the day, with the crew and nobody else. Sunset at Trou aux Biches, which faces west, from the sand or from the restaurant on the beach. Dolphins at Tamarin at dawn, an hour away, back for a late breakfast. A table at Le Pescatore or on the Grand Baie waterfront. The Château de Labourdonnais and its gardens for a slow afternoon, with the rum tasting at the end. A massage at the villa, by the pool, which the spas of Grand Baie arrange at home. Chamarel and the south-west coast as a long day with a picnic.

This is what couples remember. The pool lit from below, the palm trees lit from the foot, the alfresco with its sunken seating, dinner cooked by you or by a private chef we introduce, then the cinema or the terrace. Grand Baie, ten minutes away, is there for the nights you want noise, and the villa is there for the nights you do not.

We arrange the small things on request: flowers in the suite on arrival, a bottle of champagne in the cellar, a cake, a chef for one evening, a photographer who knows the beaches, a massage therapist at home, a private boat. Tell us what the occasion is when you enquire and we tell you what is possible and what it costs; nothing is included in the rate and nothing is marked up. For a wedding dinner at the villa, the alfresco and the living room seat the eight guests comfortably; larger receptions belong in the hotels.

October and November are the favourites: dry, warm, calm sea, before the December crowds. April and May are the same at the other end of the summer. December to March is hotter and greener, with short showers and the lychee and mango season; it is also the most expensive and the busiest. June to September is cooler and windier but sunny, with the lowest rates and empty beaches on weekdays.