Dozens of couples took to the Santa Barbara County Courthouse on Friday to make their wedding day a little extra special with a special date.

Santa Barbara County celebrated June 26, 2026, by offering couples walk-in weddings officiated by members of the Board of Supervisors.

Deputy Clerk-Recorder-Assessor Melinda Greene said the county decided to host the event because Friday’s date is known as a palindrome, which means it reads the same forward and backward — 62626.

Greene said the Clerk-Recorder’s Office has noticed in the past that specific dates can lead to more reservations because the date may have a special meaning for multiple people.

Because of that, the office has found itself flatfooted in the past as crowds of people try to get married on a specific day.

“Lately the calendar has been so booked so quickly that we’re trying to make efforts to have more staffing available,” she said. “We’re going to open up express weddings so that you don’t need an appointment, so that we can accommodate more couples trying to get married in a very beautiful and affordable way.”

Greene said the office had about 10 weddings before 1 p.m. Friday, officiated by First District Supervisor Roy Lee.

Third District Supervisor Joan Hartmann officiated the midday weddings, and Second District Supervisor Laura Capps was scheduled for later in the day.

While not every couple were aware of the event ahead of time, some took the opportunity.

Carly and Jack Raybuck traveled to Santa Barbara from Arizona when they heard about the free weddings online. The pair had never visited Santa Barbara before but decided to make the trip anyway.

Also getting married were Rebecca Silva and John Mason, who traveled from Atlanta to get married in Santa Barbara.

Silva, who is originally from California, said the two have visited Santa Barbara multiple times over the years and have even traveled for the annual Old Spanish Days Fiesta events. She said the city is extremely special for them.

“There’s no better place to get married than Santa Barbara,” she said. “We considered other locations, even on the East Coast, but we landed on Santa Barbara just because of its beauty and what it has meant to us over the years.”

Although they thought Friday’s date would be a special day to get married, they did not know the county was holding the event but called it a “pleasant surprise.”

“We were determined that today would be the day, not realizing that everyone else felt the same way,” Silva said.

Greene said the office had 24 weddings scheduled or completed by early afternoon, but ended the day with a total of 29 weddings.

So far in 2026, 66% of couples who got married at the courthouse traveled from outside of Santa Barbara County. According to Greene, 19% were from out of state and 1.5% were international visitors.

The most common city of residence for visitors is Bakersfield. The second most common is Goleta, followed by Lompoc, Long Beach and Los Angeles. Friday saw couples from Orange County, Los Angeles County, San Francisco and Phoenix, as well as local residents.

As of the office’s last poll, Santa Barbara County has officiated three times the number of marriages as other counties in California.

Greene said the goal is to perform 4,000 ceremonies by the end of the year.