Freedom to Marry Reviews

Prepared wedding online , showed up at the bureau on 9th June, took a ticket, met lady behind counter...in and out in 30 min , had to wait 24 hours for the wedding foolishly thought it would be just as quick..nope!! The 10th of June was a Friday ..HUGE crowd ... (apparently Fridays are very busy !?) 4 hours waiting for a 10 min service..admittedly some was our fault..after getting ticket again ..waiting our turn ..meeting another lady..who told us to go to station 5 which we did , but we didn't know we had to inform the clerk at that station that we were there,so 30 minutes wasted, but there you go ....altogether a brilliant experience and wouldn't change a thing...except we came from Ireland and to get the licence recognised in our country we then had to go another room to get the licence verified which took an hour in a queue then to the Supreme Court for verification of that signature plus 3 dollars cash ( another queue ) then finally to 130 William Street ,a few blocks away to get another licence another 10 dollars and 1 and half hour queue (Make sure you get a money order from post office,nothing else is acceptable )...all in all very beurocratic but very memorable and again I WOULDN'T CHANGE A THING!!! Enjoy your day and I hope this helps somewhat..ps BOAZ (you know who you are!!)thanks for being a great witness and best of luck for your future with the beautiful Erin.

I got married here to my partner. Don't expect a nice insta-worthy interior and the wait to get your license could take a bit, but I have to say very efficient and relatively friendly service-wise. During ceremony day, surprised that it only took us less than 15 minutes from the time we walked in, to when we exchanged I do's. Loved the experience. Highly recommended.

The service at city clerck stinks Damaris the supervisor absolutely unhelpful and rude wont let you finish your story just cuts you off and tells you to pay. Horrible attitude!

Best place to get marry! Faster, better, fine people, romantic in NY city... I would do it again over and over again. I married here the love of my life on 26.06.2019. No appointment needed. On fridays is to busy.

I got married here to the love of my life 3.24.16 , it was very quick and special.
Only down side is bring your own bouquet or pay $38.00 for a wilted one

A very nice place to register as a married couple. It is especially interesting experience on Friday's when it is crowded with couples getting married.

The staff are like any staff working at a government agency. Make sure you make it on time and be prepared to wait.

I have an appointment virtually at 1pm with a city clerk, The confirmation code that was emailed to me, can not be found when I try to log online on their project cupid website. No one is answering phone calls, I called the Brooklyn and the Manhattan office to obtain some kind of help. and I have gotten nowhere. This is so unprofessional. keep in mind the fee was already paid for.

Very beautiful place, InshaAllah I will go there too

The marriage bureau told us that they had mailed out our marriage certificate. When it didn't show up weeks after the allotted time, we went to the office. The employee said that the office had mailed it and there was nothing they could do for us. If we wanted the marriage certificate, we had to pay them again. We explained that we didn't lose it, but we had never received it. The supervisor was one of the worst people I've ever dealt with. She had no empathy and proceeded to berate us and told us we could just leave. If you can get married anywhere else, you should.

We went on a Friday. They didn't open the building doors until 8, so our 7:55 arrival meant waiting 5 minutes outside. Once they let us in, we were formed into a queue. There were about 6 couples there all together. By 8:10 there were about 30 couples there! We were very happy we got there early. We had filled out the online form, so at 8:30 when we were getting our ticket, we were able to by-pass the computer screen kiosk. We were number 004, so we had to wait a very short amount of time before our number was called. We spent the time there looking at the little shop. After our number was called the time with the teller was about 10 minutes. We were out before 8:45, a painless process!

Marriage is a beautiful thing.

I'm glad that we all have the right to make the same mistakes.

The happiest place on earth!
Everyone has HUGE smiles on their faces, the employees are fantastic, the people watching is incredible.
We were honored to be a part of this wonderful institution today
By all means fill the forms out online before arrival and follow the instructions, we're glad that we did.
Love wins!

We have sent licenses in to this office when we marry couples. Kimberlys Blessings has successfully married Hundreds of Couples. We have found the employees in this office to be helpful and courteous. Let us know if we can be of further assistance, or if you have any questions about your wedding and this office. Highly recommended

Wenn ihr in New York heiraten wollt .. dann seit ihr hier genau richtig!! Das ist das Standesamt von NY!










Achtung!!! Am Tag der Trauung braucht ihr mindestens einen Trauzeugen!


Also alles kein Problem!

Very good service, the place is just wonderful, well, we signed everything is not forgotten

Got our marriage licence here, could fill out lots of the details online before we arrived so the whole process was quick and simple.

Excellent service, the procedures are fast and the service is very good.

What a great place to get married. We did on September 30, 2011. Beautiful space. Awesome officiant.

What can I say, it's a government office. However, our designated bureaucrat was friendly, gave us knowing smiles, etc. We do think our easy time was owed to being there VERY early though. We showed up at 7:45AM on a Wednesday with the doors opening at 8:30. Even at 8:15, with the doors not even open, the line was out the lobby of the building and into the street.

Definitely come early, and on an off-day. Otherwise, you will be waiting a LONG time.

Nice place for visiting. I'm also visited here and I feel nice

Walked in on a Tuesday Jan. 22 .. to get a marriage license and one would consider the happiness and importance to the individuals who are walking in except for one information counter clerk attitude, towards people who asked her questions, at one point I was trying to help a individual who needed a Spanish translator and she heard them speak a little english and states to me seems like she s ok .. So unprofessional and absolutely not meant for the job where people in NYC need guidance.

I have been trying to call the City Clerk Marriage office from out of town about an obtaining an older certificate application for several weeks and it is impossible to get through. Yes I mailed in the request 8 weeks ago with payment. Either very under staffed or just leaving the phone off the hook. Suspect the later

People getting married here from all over the world

Person at Station 14 (there to get a copy of my marriage certificate) is very rude. Doesn't explain anything and throws things when she is supposed to hand them back to you. She dropped my license and said "there goes your license"

I got married here to the love of my life 3.24.15 , it was very quick and special.
Only down side is bring your own bouquet or pay $38.00 for a wilted one

The Marriage Bureau is closed now, me and my wife met with a clerk through Project Cupid site, and did a video call. It went really smoothly, and quick. The clerk had outstanding customer service, I would love the clerk to get a pay raise- her name is Wanyi.

The experience was great. Little wait time but worth it.

Our wedding ceremony here was wonderful, they even let us have a quickie in the bathroom which was a bonus, but moving in it was my best day thank you

Went in around 10am, and the wait was about 70 minutes. All staff helpful and friendly.

I've been calling the number for days...no reply. I live outside of the USA...very frustrating.

Okay.... If you read my first review, it tells you all about how I was mistreated and fought the clerk over a surname change, which I was right in the end. I thought, okay, besides her rudeness everything was pleasant, but since then more issues have occurred. So the original 3 star is now a 1 star or a 0 star if possible. Other issues since then are:

My husband and I went to this location to get married, When we went into the chapel, the woman asked for both of our rings, including my engagement ring. So all I was did was showed her which wedding band my engagement ring went with and she rudely blurted out, "Can you let me do my job!?!?"... What the heck!? I was just showing you which rings belong together. What the heck, I said it nicely too, I literally said happily "This ring goes with that one", a smile on my face and she started flipping out. I then said "okay" hurt and confused how she could be so rude. Ruining MY day. If anything, I was helping her do her job so she doesn't put the wrong rings together. B-Word.

Besides that my dad was taking some pictures and she yelled at him and rushed out saying there was a lot of people waiting.. We weren't in there for more than 6 minutes and there was 1 more family behind us, ONE. So she didn't have to be such a B-word. It pretty much ruined the ceremony, something you can't take back.

Besides that, It's hell to get anyone to pick up the phone. It's either got a busy signal or it keeps ringing.

I waited for more than one hour to merely get a copy of marriage certificate. Hope their marriage services could be more efficient.

Worst experience ever! I know there's a pandemic happening and we do understand the closing of their office today. But at least they should have announced that like 2 or 3 days ago. You wasted people's time and you did not make them prepare and look for other options of getting married especially those who are in danger of having an expired visa like the k1. So ridiculous!

Excellent service I recommend the place there many people to help you and the certificate is fast and the place is clean

Never understood why individuals who have poor customer service skills are even chosen to have a job that interacts with people on the daily. Customer Service classes definitely need to be taught to some of the employees.

The Manhattan building's interior is stylized & elegant, for a city admin building. NYC holds marriage in high regard, it seems, that it put the amount of work in that it did, to make a nice presentation.

As another commenter said, it is understaffed, but I attribute that to having had wildly trending & expanding popularity.

There is the woman work in there is very rude counter 2 when ever you go there never go to the black lady she is not nice at all I don t know which country she come from but I hope is not mind

Didn't wait that long, was kind of fast actually, friendly staff, had a great experience.

A+++ would elope again. But seriously, the other reviewer who said this is the happiest government office ever was right on. So was the one who praised their officiant; the guy who performed our ceremony brought amazing on-the-spot gravitas in a way that was somehow dead serious and gentle and kind all at once. Plus at $25 for the license and $35 for the ceremony (with a mandatory 24-hour wait in between) it beats the hell out of any other marriage arrangements I can think of. Just don't forget a witness and maybe don't have to wheedle them past security at the last possible minute.

Married my sweetheart here She s dead now. What a life!

ElvisComedy(DoT)com

These people are determined to not answer the phone! I tried calling for days at various times and nobody would ever answer. Still needing an answer to my question, I had no choice but to go in-person and talk to someone.

Of course the individual I spoke with was so incredibly mean and offended I would even come in asking about my particular question (didn t get her name but she was manning station 11 at 9am on Dec 9). In short, she just stared at me until I walked away.

If you guys just answered the phone you could make both clients and your staff happier, jeez!

Two stars because it seemed like the actual wedding ceremonies were being moved efficiently.

New York city marriage bureau is a special little petri dish of theatre, with folks registering to get it done later, others in the middle of getting it done now, and others who are riding that joy wave on the way out. I photographed Dijana and Crawfords New York City Hall elopement, and I love that apart from being a hall that feels alive, the staff and officiants make it a great moment for the couples, which is super unique given how many come through every day (and makes my job a dream as a result). Thanks!

Been there twice. There are very nice officers and very rude officers.

I was registering as a marriage officiant from out of state in NYC. Online states it could be up to three weeks for approval after they receive your documents however I received my certificate of registration within a week of mailing in my documents from Colorado! I could not be happier with my experience so far!

I cannot believe how quickly and easily the process went here--both for applying for the marriage license and for getting married (we returned exactly one week later). The first step is to go through metal detectors and run your bags through the x-ray machine, and that was one of the longest waits--and it was not long. Be ready with your whole party before you go in for your wedding because once you get your number it can go quickly. We were called up to the window to pay and fill out the paperwork within 20 minutes of arriving at 10am on a Thursday in December (and it was 12/12, which some had warned me might be a "special" date that others would want). All told we were probably done in 40 minutes, and we took our time taking photos in front of the City Hall backdrop that's there. The general mood is good and of course the others there with you are in good spirits too! Highly recommend.

Probably the happiest government office in existence.

The best place for couples who are looking for easy marriage ceremony. Friendly and professional staff always ready to help and to make your big day memorable.

Understaffed! We waited over two hours on Friday right after the Thanksgiving to get married. The place was jammed with couples trying to get married. They had only one ceremony official even though there are two chapels. This is a most popular marriage bureau in NYC. It was shocking to learn that it is so poorly managed and supervised.

Before getting married here, I did extensive research and read just about every review to be prepared. I got married in January, not a very popular time as it is winter. However, it was the Friday of MLK weekend. You receive a ticket when you arrive and wait for your number to be called. We arrived around 11:30am and had a 2 hour wait. I would suggest going as early as possible. Also, you are allowed to bring food and drink so have a snack and water at least for the long wait! The rooms where you are married are a little tacky, but I wasn't expecting after the reviews I read.

Took about an hour and a half to get through the entire process but hey who said marriage was easy?

Had multiple interactions with the staff and all went above and beyond in correcting an issue I had. Highly recommend this location! Come on a Wednesday. Avoid Friday's.

The wait can be long but aside from that everything went well. Make certain you know what to bring because it's really not their job to accommodate you. I had my bouquet and a few friends and we actually had a good time with everyone there. They were friendly and answered all of our questions.

People get married here, so the government employees here are in way better mood than the DMV.

Love the NYC Marriage Bureau but they are not open on the weekends! I got my marriage license from them but scheduled my own ceremony with services from NewYorkMarried

The lines are brutal. If you're ok with spending a few hours waiting on line, then it's a photo friendly place to get hitched.