The City Council of Campillo de Ranas, in Guadalajara, has its wedding calendar full in 2023
Campillo de Ranas is a beautiful town of popular black architecture -slate- in the province of Guadalajara with 150 residents that was doomed to be uninhabited in a few years. However, the approval in 2005 of the law authorizing same-sex marriages changed their future. The law of the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero pushed many mayors to declare themselves objectors to the norm. Francisco Maroto, mayor of Campillo de Ranas, of the PSOE, rowed against the current and offered the charms of his town to officiate at civil ceremonies without any problem.
Since then, eight rural houses, a rural hostel and apartments have been opened in this small town, as well as six restaurants and bars that have generated a good number of jobs. Once the parenthesis of the pandemic has been overcome, Campillo de Ranas has fully covered the reservation of civil weddings in the town hall throughout this 2023.
“There are weeks when we officiate three or four weddings and this year Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve are also busy,” explains its mayor, who has governed the town for five legislatures by absolute majority. His decision to officiate weddings between people of the same sex “has been a great window to make ourselves known and has generated businesses that did not exist before because each wedding has between 100 and 200 guests who know the town, spend the night and, on many occasions, They decide to return to visit him.
And it is that Campillo de Ranas is located in the Natural Park of the Sierra Norte de Guadalajara, its houses are built with slate and it is very close to the Hayedo de la Tejera Negra, surrounded by oak forests and streams.
Weddings for 205 euros
Getting married in the Campillo de Ranas town hall implies the payment of a municipal tax of 205 euros. It is essential to contact the consistory beforehand to reserve a date -in 2023 they are already complete- attached the file of the civil marriage, the capitulations, the proof of payment of the fee and the ID of the spouses and witnesses.
Many of the weddings that are celebrated in this town are of people of the same sex, but not all, because Campillo de Ranas seems to have become fashionable for new spouses, whether or not they are heterosexual, not only from Spain but also from other countries such as Australia, Japan, Argentina, Chile or Ireland. Behind this fashion is the decision of its mayor 18 years ago: «I wanted to support Zapatero for his courage but I never thought about his repercussions. Today I believe that much progress has been made and that all this has been normalized because all weddings are the same and no distinctions can be made because everyone, the spouses, family members and friends, behaves the same and dresses the same”, acknowledges its mayor, who also has a particular story: at the age of 17 he wanted to go live outside Madrid, in the countryside, with some friends. When they arrived at Campillo de Ranas he felt very welcome by the residents of that time and he stayed here. So since then.
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