Mallorca braced for wedding boom

Taylor Swift was just one of the stars who flew in for the three-day event. The location has also hosted the weddings of Mafalda of Bulgaria, Rafa Nadal, Gareth Bale, Marcos Llorente and Marco Asensio. Civil marriages have been gaining ground in the Balearics for some time now and some mayors are seeing their diaries fill up with busy wedding dates, especially on Fridays and Saturdays - but they are braced for a surge in demand.

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From 4 April, justices of the peace will lose their powers to officiate at weddings and the local councils outside of Palma fear that the regulatory change will cause a new boom. More and more municipalities in Mallorca are starting to charge couples. There are also those who make non-residents pay more than residents in an attempt to dissuade couples who are frightened by the backlog in the judicial district of Palma and turn to other municipalities.

“The town councils are there to serve the citizens and they will be served whenever possible, but we cannot make up for the traffic jams in the civil registries of judicial districts. If necessary, Madrid has to provide more resources.” This is what the mayor of Alaró, Llorenç Perelló said two years ago why he charged non-residents up to 350 euros to get married, 230 euros more than what residents paid. Even then he warned that prices could continue to rise if the trend was not stopped. The figures for Alaró are similar to those of Pollensa and Muro, both of which hosted 41 weddings last year.

Pending what happens after 4 April, there are still those in Mallorca who welcome the business.
The mayor of Sa Pobla, Biel Ferragut, loves weddings. He personally officiates at as many weddings as he can and his town hall does not charge for it. “The taxes we pay are enough, I do it gladly. If there were a flood of weddings from outside, we’d see”, he says.