Blake Nelson has been photographing weddings in New York City for six years, including as many as 10 weddings a year at the City Clerk’s office.
Couples who reached out to him to shoot their civil ceremonies often made two requests.
“They want the green couch, and they want their exit photo at the yellow door,” he said, of the couch inside and the ornate door on Worth Street where couples leave after exchanging vows.
“The door has become a very iconic part of the courthouse, and it’s so recognizable in photos.”
So he was shocked to learn earlier this week that the doors – the favorite one a golden yellow, the other green from iodized copper – were now brown, with one covered in plywood.
Christina Vong and Leon Yuan get ready to take portraits after leaving the marriage bureau on Worth Street in Lower Manhattan, July 24, 2026. Credit: Alex Krales/The City Reporter
Nelson photographs couples from around the world who travel to New York City specifically for their courthouse wedding, and nearly all mention the door.
“I was so sad about it literally just being wood,” he said.
His posts about the beloved yellow door on Instagram and TikTok were flooded with comments. One person called it a “symbol of love.”
One bride who already booked with Nelson for her wedding next month messaged him, hoping it would change back by the time she got married.
A spokesperson for the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, Dan Kastanis, told The City Reporter that the brown doors are just temporary, as they are set to be replaced by more ADA-accessible ones — a project scheduled to be completed sometime in the fall.
“The gilded doors at Worth Street are beloved by generations of newlyweds — and they will be returning, more accessible than ever before!,” he said in a statement.
“We anticipate new — still golden — ADA-accessible doors to be installed at Worth Street in the fall.”
The Department of Citywide Administrative Services released a rendering of plans for a new marriage bureau door. Credit: Via DCAS
For the couples in the in-between, they had to make do. Nelson said it can be seen as a marker of time.
Couples, he said, can say “in 2026, summer, I had my civil ceremony and you can tell because it’s that door.”
On Friday, photographer Aisha Ochirova waited outside the doors for the couple she was photographing, something she does a few times a week. She noticed the change at another wedding on Wednesday.
“They just painted them,” she said. “It’s not the prettiest. The color choice is kind of weird.”
A few minutes later, Christina Vong and Leon Yuan burst out of the brown doors just after getting married, to cheers from their families waiting for them outside.
They posed for photos, feeding each other pizza on the steps, surrounded by leftover confetti from previous weddings.
“We noticed they weren’t green anymore,” Vong said of the doors, as they walked west on Worth Street to take more photos.
Asked if she was upset about it, her newlywed optimism won out.
“A little, but it’s not like a mind-blowing thing for us,” she said. “It doesn’t change anything.”
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