Getting married in New York

Today I'm writing about a topic that has nothing to do with photography at all. For personal reasons, I looked into the topic intensively and discovered that there is a lot of incorrect or outdated information about it on the German-speaking internet. Even on the federal government’s side. (I think the Foreign Office is responsible for this…)

As a result, I wanted to write a blog post about it before my information became out of date again 🙂

Getting married in New York is super easy. All you need is ID and a credit card. And time.

Before you in New York If you want to get married, you must submit a marriage proposal. Your loved one aka your loved one anyway and then officially with the City Clerk of New York. There is an office in each district, so there are 5 in the city. We got married in a newly renovated office in Manhattan.

The application you have to submit first is called the Marriage License, costs $35 and entitles you to get married no earlier than 24 hours after submitting the application and is valid for 60 days. The application confirmation also states from what time you can get married. By the way, you can also apply fill out online.

So you go back to the same office the next day and register there with an application, ID and a(!) witness. If you don't have a witness, you'll find one at the office. We didn't have one either and simply spoke to people waiting. After a few cancellations, we met Iain and Lucy, who coincidentally were also looking for witnesses. As a result, Iain (the spelling is correct because he comes from Cardiff/Wales) witnessed our wedding and I was a witness and spontaneous wedding photographer for the two extremely nice people who wanted to get married.

The marriage ceremony costs $25. There is more information about it in the pictures below. You have to fill out a form and wait for an official to check the information and clear up any remaining uncertainties. Then you have to wait again until you go to the chapel and see the registrar who will perform the actual ceremony.

The marriage ceremony itself is completely unromantic and lasts what feels like 25 seconds. It is limited to the most necessary sentences: "Is there anyone who has something against the marriage?" (Since no one is there, no one can have anything against it.) "If you [woman's name] want to marry [man's name] who is present here, then answer with 'I do'." The whole thing goes the other way round too, of course. If you stated before the ceremony that you wanted to exchange rings, then now something like "as a sign of your eternal love, exchange rings" will come up. The last sentence from the officiant is then "By virtue of my office in the wonderful state of New York, I pronounce you man and wife." He is happy, applauds and you can kiss. That's it!

You get the marriage certificate and are married. But only in the States! If you want the marriage to be recognized in Germany (and the rest of the world), then you need an apostille.

So go back to the front desk, fill out the application again, wait again, pay $35 this time and admire the fastest stamper you've ever seen. Then go to another window and get the confirmation signature. Now the apostille still needs to be certified. To do this, you have to go across the street to the courthouse and have the notary confirm the signature. It costs $3 and unfortunately you are not allowed to take photos in the building - it would be worth it. However, your luggage will be held back at reception and you will have to undergo a personal check like at the airport.

Now all you have to do is pick up the confirmation of confirmation at the Department of State on the 19th floor of 123 William Street. There you have to wait on uncomfortable chairs and pay 10$ (cash and suitable Daniel and Kerstin wrote to me in April 2013: "Unfortunately, the Department of State no longer accepts cash for issuing apostilles, only checks or MoneyOrders. But no need to panic - MoneyOrders are available diagonally across the street at Duane Reade (a kind of drugstore) at the photo counter.") to pay for it. But that's really it! From then on you will also be married in Germany.

It all sounds worse than it is, because the people at the registry office already know what you want from them based on your accent and guide you, explaining the next steps. Or as our best man Iain put it so beautifully: "The people here make you feel like you want to be here all day - as long as you have a credit card with you."

If your name has changed due to marriage, you must have this recognized in Germany. This is more complicated than getting married in New York.

You can have your marriage confirmed in Germany, with the advantage that - if you lose your New York marriage certificate - you can have a new one issued in Germany. Otherwise you'll have to get a new one in New York - that could be a bit more complicated...

Now a few more impressions of the office in Manhattan.

A few more comments on the text above: this is the simple procedure. Of course there are special cases and exceptions. (Edit: and the text is from 2011 - something might have changed...) You can get it on the City Clerk Office website all information!

If that's too unromantic and too much authority for you, you can hire a professional wedding planner and then create your wedding according to your wishes. With a wedding carriage through Central Park or getting married in a special place. The service sector in New York - and especially in this area - is significantly more developed than in Germany. However, you'll quickly end up with $1000 for the wedding.

We wanted to do it all ourselves. We will never forget checking a hundred times to make sure we had packed all the documents. We will never forget seeing other happy couples while we were waiting - especially the elf with the green hair. We will never forget looking into Lucy's happy eyes when she realized that we had the same problem as her and that we could help each other. We will never forget looking into each other's eyes in front of the registrar so that we wouldn't miss the opportunity to say "I do". And, and, and,...

And besides, we also knew that we would be there the next day Ryan Brenizer a wonderful photographer had found someone who knew how to translate our happiness into images.