In Love and Hoping for Asylum, Migrants Line Up for City Hall Weddings

The steady parade of couples seeking civil marriage ceremonies in New York City has expanded in recent months to include newly arrived migrants.

Every morning, dozens of couples file into a granite building in Lower Manhattan, many wearing white and toting bouquets as they partake in a longstanding ritual: tying the knot at a low-frills City Hall wedding.

But as New York City has experienced a two-year influx of more than 200,000 migrants from the southern border, testing the city’s social fabric and its ability to shelter asylum seekers, even this snapshot of city life has changed.

Over the past several months, the confetti-strewed sidewalk outside the Manhattan Marriage Bureau has been dotted with Spanish-speaking couples, some with children in tow, seeking to get married.

Greeting them outside with his camera is usually Braulio Cuenca, who has photographed newlyweds on the steps outside the bureau at 141 Worth Street for more than two decades.

In addition to offering his services as a last-minute photographer, Mr. Cuenca has found himself helping couples from Venezuela, Ecuador and Colombia with translations as they struggle to get past security for their wedding appointments. In some cases, he has even served as a witness for migrants who showed up to the ceremony without one.