Marry where the Camino ends, in Spain's oldest hotel

Granite, and plenty of it. The Hostal dos Reis Católicos is a Renaissance hospital raised between 1501 and 1511 by the royal architect Enrique Egas, with a 16th-century Plateresque doorway carved with the apostles and medallions of Isabella and Ferdinand. Inside are stone arcades, coffered ceilings and corridors hung with more than 140 paintings from the Madrid School. Rooms pair four-poster beds and antiques with modern bathrooms. It's formal without being stiff, and it photographs beautifully in Galicia's soft light.

Isabella and Ferdinand decided on a hospital for footsore pilgrims after their own pilgrimage in 1486, and building began in 1501. For more than four centuries it sheltered and treated the walkers arriving at the cathedral next door, with a royal apartment kept ready behind the balcony for visiting monarchs. The chapel was declared a national monument in 1912, the hospital moved out in 1953, and the building reopened as a hotel the following year, joining the Paradores network in 1986. One habit survives: the first ten pilgrims through the door each day still eat for free.

Galicia is green, coastal and still underrated, and Santiago is its hub. Cabo Fisterra, the 'end of the world' where pilgrims watch the sun drop into the Atlantic, is about an hour and a half west. The Rías Baixas, Albariño country, begin forty minutes south, and the nearest sandy beaches, Testal at Noia and A Aguieira at Porto do Son, are forty to fifty minutes away. Porto in Portugal makes a two-and-a-half-hour honeymoon start. Our guide to getting married in Spain covers the regions and the seasons.

Fly into Santiago, eighteen kilometers out; A Coruña is under an hour away and Vigo just over, with Porto as a backup. The train station is across town, a twenty-five-minute walk. The square itself is closed to traffic: hotel guests may drive to the door to unload, register the plate at reception and use the small paid garage, first come, first served. Your navigator should aim for Rúa de San Francisco, where a bollard drops to let you through. A coach or minibus needs a city permit requested a week ahead.

With 137 rooms and suites, your whole guest list can sleep in the building. Standard and superior doubles, junior suites and suites, several with four-poster beds; the Royal Suite has a balcony onto the cathedral's facade. Check-in is at three and checkout at noon, and the Parador gives the couple their wedding night as a gift, depending on the size of the party. Breakfast stretches to vegan and gluten-free options, and the café stays open until one in the morning.

Ceremonies here are symbolic, held in one of the cloisters or inside the Capilla Real, the Gothic chapel between the four courtyards behind its 16th-century iron grille. Jillian, our planner in Spain, books your celebrant, dresses the cloister with the florist and holds the timings with the Parador's events team on the day.

The four cloisters are the heart of the place, each named for an evangelist. San Juan and San Marcos are the 16th-century Renaissance pair, with fountains at their centers; San Lucas and San Mateo followed in the 18th century. Drinks receptions are set under the arcades of San Marcos, and San Lucas is lit after dark. One couple took their first dance in the open cloister while friends blew soap bubbles and rose petals drifted down from an upstairs window. There's a terrace and a small garden too, on the quieter side of the building.

Dinner takes place in one of the halls. The Salón Comedor Real seats 220 under stone arches and runs nearly thirty meters long; the Salón Real takes 150 at an imperial table or rounds, the old smoking room 60, and the Sacristía Alta an intimate 18. Most of our couples in Spain bring around thirty guests, and this place scales with you, from a family table to a full banquet. For the biggest days, the chapel and the Sala de Arte open into one room for 470.

The kitchen is the Parador's own and Galician through and through: Atlantic fish and shellfish, scallops baked in the shell, octopus with potatoes and Arzúa cheese, and the almond tarta de Santiago to finish. Wedding menus are built with the events team, one snack, starter, main and dessert for the whole group, with drinks included at the aperitif and at dinner. Vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free versions are there for the asking. The two restaurants, the formal Dos Reis and the tavern-style Enxebre, cover the night before and the morning after.

There's a dance floor indoors, and the cloister works for a first dance under the sky. Bring your own band or DJ; the Parador doesn't tie you to a music supplier. The party has a closing time, which the events team confirms for your date, and the house doesn't run an open bar after dinner, so late drinks move to the café, open until one. The bars of the old town are a few minutes' walk for anyone who wants to carry on.

This is a working 137-room hotel and a national monument that visitors tour, so you won't have the whole building to yourselves, and the Parador can host more than one event on the same day. What you do get is your own hall and cloister for the hours that matter, a dedicated events team, and the square at your door for photos. If total privacy tops your list, we'll point you to one of the quieter Spanish wedding locations we work with instead.

Galicia is green for a reason: it rains in every season, so a cloister ceremony comes with a plan B. The Capilla Real seats 220, every hall is air-conditioned, and the cloister arcades are covered, so a drinks reception carries on through a shower. Summers are warm rather than scorching, and a wet day here looks right: granite was made for it.