Results tagged “marriagebureau”

The city has spent $12.3 million to spruce up its Marriage Bureau and move it out of its drab old home in the Municipal Building by City Hall, all in an attempt to compete with Vegas as "the wedding destination of the world." That necessitated hiring designer Jamie Drake, who handled Mayor Bloomberg’s Upper East Side town house, to transform an old DMV office up the street into a peach and lavender connubial oasis.

While the Manhattan Marriage Bureau occupies space in that glorious wedding cake of a building--the Municipal Building designed by McKim, Mead & White--the bureau itself is pretty dingy, and is getting ready to move to a new space, one with marble floors and columns, chandeliers and even a seating area! The NY Times visited the bureau recently, observing 51 weddings (shortest: 48 seconds; longest: 2 minutes, 32 seconds) and speaking with one city employee who has performed thousands of weddings:

Walter Curtis can find a wealth of vivid memories: The bride who showed up in a princess costume one Halloween. The 126 couples who came before him over the course of a single Valentine’s Day. The former Balkans freedom fighter who, when instructed to kiss the bride, turned and planted a smooch on Mr. Curtis’s cheek.

Continue reading "Manhattan Marriage Bureau Gets Ready to Move"