The Marriage Bureau is part of the Office of the City Clerk of New York City. The Bureau provides Marriage Licenses, Domestic Partnership registration, civil Marriage Ceremonies, registration of Marriage Officiants, and copies and amendments of Marriage Records issued by the City Clerk. It is the site of more marriages than any other venue in the United States. Since 1930 over 1.2 million people have been wed at the Marriage Bureau. Between 2000 and 2007 an average of 58 couples a day were married here. In 2007, more than 16,000 couples wedded at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau. Mayor

Rudy Giuliani Rudolph William Louis Giuliani (, ; born May 28, 1944) is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 107th Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. He previously served as the United States Associate Attorney General from 1981 to 198 ...

often performed weddings at the Marriage Bureau in person.

New venue

In 2008 Mayor

Michael Bloomberg Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner, co-founder and CEO of Bloomberg L.P. He was Mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, and was a ca ...

announced that the Bureau would move from the

Manhattan Municipal Building The David N. Dinkins Municipal Building (originally the Municipal Building and later known as the Manhattan Municipal Building) is a 40-story, building at 1 Centre Street, east of Chambers Street, in the Civic Center neighborhood of Manhatt ...

to new quarters in order to provide a more dignified setting for the marriages of New Yorkers, and attract couples who might otherwise travel to Las Vegas to be married, boosting New York's tourist industry. The new Marriage Bureau opened on January 12, 2009 on the ground floor at the Louis J. Lefkowitz State Office Building, a 1920s

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

building at 141 Worth Street (corner of Centre Street and

Worth Street Worth Street is a two-way street running roughly northwest-southeast in Manhattan, New York City. It runs from Hudson Street, TriBeCa Tribeca (), originally written as TriBeCa, is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. Its na ...

) that was formerly occupied by a Department of Motor Vehicles office."Louis J. Lekfowitz State Office Building"
on the New York City Department of Citywide Administrative Services website. The space was decorated by interior designer Jamie Drake who also decorated

Gracie Mansion Archibald Gracie Mansion (commonly called Gracie Mansion) is the official residence of the Mayor of New York City. Built in 1799, it is located in Carl Schurz Park, at East End Avenue and 88th Street in the Yorkville neighborhood of Manhattan. T ...

and Mayor Bloomberg's private residence. The project cost was $12 million. The facilities contain two separate wedding chapels off the building's central rotunda. In the east chapel, the sofa and walls feature apricot and peach colors; the west chapel is done in purple and lavender. Each chapel has an abstract painting that matches the walls and hangs next to the lectern from where the clerk performs the ceremonies. A marriage license in New York costs $35, and the fee to have the wedding performed at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau is $25. These fees can be paid by credit card or money order payable to the City Clerk.

Fictional Marriage Bureau weddings

Michael Patrick Flaherty the character played by

Michael J. Fox Michael Andrew Fox (born June 9, 1961), known professionally as Michael J. Fox, is a Canadian-American retired actor. Beginning his career in the 1970s, he rose to prominence portraying Alex P. Keaton on the NBC sitcom ''Family Ties'' (1 ...

on the American sitcom ''

Spin City ''Spin City'' is an American sitcom television series that aired from September 17, 1996 to April 30, 2002, on ABC. Created by Gary David Goldberg and Bill Lawrence, the show is set in a semi-fictionalized version of the New York City mayor's ...

'' is married at the Marriage Bureau.

References

{{reflist Marriage Bureau