Special Wedding Date Brings Lovers to the Santa Barbara Courthouse
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT) - Other than Valentine's Day, a Palindrome Day may be one of the most popular days to get married.
The date is the same, forward and back. In a special announcement the county has put out a message to those ready to have a ceremony that:
NO appointment needed for wedding ceremonies on Palindrome Day (6/26/26) this Friday in Santa Barbara! Ceremonies will be performed by County Board of Supervisors.
The courthouse is one of the most popular places on the Central Coast for a wedding.
It is a National Historic Landmark and visited by thousands of people each month.
A special area is set aside for weddings and other spaces can be reserved for a fee, especially if your wedding requires chairs.
County Supervisors Roy Lee, Laura Capps and Joan Hartmann were on hand to help with the weddings.
"Couples are very excited about numerology and certain days are auspicious.," said Melinda Greene, Santa Barbara County Chief Deputy Clerk-Recorder. "We saw on the calendar that Palindrome Day was coming up so we thought we would have high demand . We decided to say no appointment necessary and accommodate as many couples as we can."
One couple from Arizona planned their special day here but had never visited Santa Barbara. Carly Raybuck said, "I feel like it is the perfect day. We are so excite. We tried and it worked out."
Her new husband Jack said, "..we've been married in our hearts for many years now so this felt like kinda (full circle)"
At the end of the day there were 29 ceremonies.
"Pretty much any wedding in Santa Barbara is special and magical we live in a very blessed and spiritual place I feel it adds more meaning to the ceremony," said Councilmember Oscar Gutierrez who also performed a ceremony.
Ceremonies cost $104 and Marriage Licenses cost $100. Santa Barbara is able to record and issue certified copies while the couple waits so they can leave with copies.
Today there were couples from Orange County, LA County, San Francisco, Phoenix Arizona, and many local residents.
The county is expected to do around 4000 ceremonies for the year.
Santa Barbara performs almost 3 times the ceremonies as other counties per capita.
2026 to date:
66% of couples are from outside SB County (of that 19% are out of state and 1.5% are international.
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