Getting Married in New York City as a UK citizen

Hi all, it’s been really busy and I have really been slacking on this blog! This blog post is not nursing related, but something I wanted to share with people who may find this useful 🙂

Thank you for tuning in and reading this, hopefully I can give you all the advice and tips to help you go get married in New York City, USA (NYC) with this step by step process on how to, with address’s and costs of everything too. This is correct as of 4th May 2023 (May the fourth be with you!) We got married down at NYC Clerks Office as it was the easiest way to do it and cheapest (romantic I know!) – If you want to marry somewhere like Central Park you need to hire a registrar and they will organise this for you. This will cost more.

Firstly, you can find all your applications and appointments and extra advice here: https://www.cityclerk.nyc.gov/content/ this is what we used to start with.

The first thing you need to do is apply for a marriage license online (you can do it in person also – but book an appointment!) You need to book this in advance before heading over to NYC. You should apply within 21 days of your wedding day. To apply for your marriage license online follow this link: https://projectcupid.cityofnewyork.us/app/cupid#/display/5ea1d0bda46ab1020e1659f4

Once you have done this, you will receive an email confirmation with a code / reference on it – you need to take this with you when you go in person. Next thing you will need to do is book 2 appointments:

Book an in person marriage license appointment here: https://projectcupid.cityofnewyork.us/app/cupidceremony#/display/5f21c6447d42630218ccbccb – during this they will check your ID documents are all correct and give you your marriage licence which you will need to bring on the day of your marriage.
Book a second appointment for at least 24 hours after the marriage license appointment (this is your official wedding day) you can marry up to 60 days after you receive your marriage license but no less than 24 hours.

You will need to take only ONE form of ID with you: A passport / driving license is what we took with us (we took extra for some reason haha). However, if you have been married before, changed your name / are transgender for example – you will need to take extra documents: Decree absolute for your divorce, Deed poll for your name change – That’s all 🙂 You can find what ID you need to take here: https://www.cityclerk.nyc.gov/content/proper-identification

FYI – New York City is an extremely LGBTQ+ friendly place to get married, one of the reasons we chose it actually! They don’t use gender on their marriage certificates, it goes down as Spouse A and Spouse B. They also don’t put your dead name (birth name) if you are transgender and have documents to show your legal name change. And they pronounce you as ‘married’ rather than husband and wife. They also don’t need a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) if you are transgender, they don’t have this in NYC at all, so as long as you have your passport, driving license, deed poll or any other ID you take in your gender and current name – you are all set to go. If you want to get married in the UK as a transgender person you will need a GRC to get married legally in your gender. Otherwise it goes down as your birth sex and they will have to include your dead name (birth name on your birth certificate) on your marriage certificate! It’s awful and our government need to change.

When you arrive in NYC, on the day of your first appointment you will head down to the NYC City Clerks office located: 141 Worth St, New York, NY 10013, United States – TOP TIP: Download google maps if you haven’t already! This will be your life saver for the whole of NYC. Open the google maps app, and go to settings and then offline maps – download NYC offline map. You will then be able to get directions offline without the need to use any mobile data! Save all your locations in NYC so they are there and ready for you to go. This is exactly what I did. We went from Times Sq subway station on 42nd Street NYC on the Q subway named Downtown & Brooklyn and got off at Canal Street station. Every subway ride is $2.75 regardless of where you are going and need to either get a metro ticket before you go through the gates OR you can use contactless bank card / Apple Pay on the gate. So a return ticket will cost you $5.50 – you will also pay $1 for the metro card itself, so keep this and just top it up as you go. We had our appointment on a Wednesday at 9:15am and it was really quiet that morning.

We then followed out google maps down the road to the NYC Clerks office, around 5 minutes walk away. Once you are there, you will need to show your email confirmation of the appointment (every time), then you will go through security, they have scanners like you do at the airport to check your bags and self. Then you will go to a desk, and collect your ticket number and sit and wait to be called. Once called up, you will show them your confirmation email, along with all your ID documents and check all the information on your marriage license to ensure it is all correct and you will pay $35 (by bank card – they don’t take cash) for it – then you are done for this part. You will need to wait 24 hours to get officially married, but make sure you have booked an appointment or you won’t get in at all! Silly mistake we made… we forgot to book the wedding day! So we had to do it the following day. We got married around 48hours later after completing the marriage licence. DON’T forget you need ONE witness present! We didn’t have one, but we literally googled one the night before! And to our saviour we found Kennedy, who was amazing, he was out witness and took 50 photos for us on the day where he dropped off a USB drive with them on at our hotel the following day! You can find him here: https://weddingwitnessnyc.com We paid $175 for this in cash when we saw him. He was so lovely, friendly and showed us everything we needed to do on the day. You can also find a random local on the street and hope for the best 😀

On the day of your wedding day / marriage day, the same process applies as above, you will go through security, show your email confirmation for the appointment, and then wait to get married. We got married on a Friday morning at 10am, and it was REALLY busy! We waited around 20 minutes to get officially married. There were a lot of ceremonies taking place, and people dressed up in full wedding gowns or were just in casual clothing – there is no dress code 🙂 We chose something in-between…

Now, if you do not need an extended license (apparently UK you don’t really need this… but we were paranoid so got it anyway whilst we were there!) If you don’t need one, once you come out after your ceremony they give you your marriage certificate and you are all done! Congratulations whoop! However, if you want the extended license like we did, you need 2 more steps and costs sadly. Before you leave the city clerks office, you have to take your marriage certificate to the desk and ask for an extended license, and then you will pay an extra $25 for this (per copy, we only needed one). Once they have given you the forms, you have to go across the road to the Supreme Court, 60 Centre St, New York, NY 10007, United States (big fancy building in the photo here), you will go through more security and ask for the Notary desk. This is located down stairs in the basement. There was a huge queue when we arrived and we waited a while to be seen, maybe 25 minutes? Here you will pay $3 in cash or money order (they didn’t accept bank cards on this day), and they will stamp it for you and staple some random paper to it.

The FINAL STEP – once you have finished in the Notary desk and got everything and paid your fee, you will then walk down to the NYC State of Department located at 123 Williams Street, NYC between Fulton and John and go to the Apostille desk. This took around 10 minutes to walk to. Before you go in, you will need to make sure you have a $10 money order – we got our from up the same road. There is a local pharmacy on the same street, go in and ask for a $10 money order and you will pay $11 for this. You will need this to pay for your apostille for the extended license. MAKE SURE YOU BOOK AN APPOINTMENT – You need to email: licensing@dos.ny.gov with a screen shot of your flight details home, a photo of the front and back of your marriage certificate. When you email make sure you put the email subject as Apostille priority. They will do this on the same day for you as you are a UK citizen and will need this before you fly back home. We emailed whilst we were there, but had to wait 30 minutes to receive the email confirmation before they would see us! So make sure you do it before you head in there. Then you can show them the email confirmation, they will take your marriage certificate, attach an apostille letter on the front, sign it and you are DONE! ~That’s it.

To be honest, the whole extended marriage license, seemed a lot of hassle for nothing haha! But they obviously have their ways of doing things. All in all from the moment we got to NYC city clerks office to get married to getting that final stamp at the Apostille office, it took us 2.5 hours. This will be a lot less if it’s not as busy, you are organised with your appointments and if you don’t even need this part… What’s extra on your extended license: Your parents names, and previous marriage in small writing at the bottom (it just says ‘Spouse B has 1 previous marriage’ and not names etc of people). No other information is added.

But I hope that helps break it all down for you and what you need to do in an easy explanation. Good luck and congratulations in advance!! You can watch the vlog and see where we got married here: https://youtu.be/0yldGc1BZXo This will be available to watch from 8pm (UK) on 5th May 2023.