Marrying at Rikers Island: Few Frills, Many Rules (Published 2008) (2024)

The long walk to the Rose M. Singer chapel on Rikers Island starts after the wedding party passes through metal detectors. When the bride and groom reach the altar, the chapel doors are locked behind them.

Marriage vows are uttered in a windowless room with cinder-block walls. There is no cake, no music and no photography.

And forget a honeymoon cruise or a jaunt to a tropical island. The couple have permission for nothing more than a kiss after the pastor declares them husband and wife.

“Once you say ‘I do,’ he is going his way and you are going your way,” said the Rev. David Staton. “They are not going home together.”

The rules for weddings on Rikers Island are strict, but not enough to deter what hopeless romantics might call the power of love. Last year, for example, 180 marriages were performed on Rikers Island, about one every other day.

Pastor Staton has performed about 400 weddings at Rikers Island over the last six years, sometimes several in one day. Most of the time, the groom is the one who is incarcerated, but on Monday he will officiate at the Rikers wedding of the Grammy-nominated rapper Remy Ma, whose real name is Remy Smith, and who is awaiting sentencing after she was convicted of assault for shooting a woman in 2007.

Life behind bars is meant to be an equalizer for the rich or poor, the famous or obscure, as the no-frills nuptials at Rikers demonstrate. But even without engraved invitations, gift registries, and table settings of china and candles, the logistics of conducting a jailhouse ceremony, sometimes in maximum security, would tax the most enterprising wedding planner.

Even getting the license takes coordination. The free partner must sign for a license at the city clerk’s office, which sends someone to Rikers once a month with applications for inmates to sign.

There is no poring over social calendars with in-laws to set the date. The timing is up to the Department of Correction, said its spokesman, Stephen J. Morello.

Some inmates wear jail-issued jumpsuits during the ceremony, but suits and gowns can be brought in from outside.

When that happens, the fitting process, especially for wedding gowns, takes on a whole new meaning as guards size up every inch of material, lest contraband be nestled among the stitches and folds.

If the bride is the one locked up, her gown must be brought in by a guest and stuffed through an opening, resembling a mail slot, into a room where it is X-rayed. She changes and does her hair in her cell.

Like all visitors, the wedding party — besides the intended spouse, only two guests are allowed — must board a bus in Queens to cross over the bridge to Rikers, and then pass through drug searches, X-ray scanners and metal detectors.

The first time Pastor Staton performed a wedding at Rikers, the bride’s voluminous gown and her veil set off alarms as she went through security, perhaps because of some adornment.

“She rang a little bit, but they took the wand and wanded her down,” he said. “She was all right.”

Simple wedding bands are permitted, but bridal bouquets are banned, because their thickets of stems and petals could be used for stashing contraband. For that reason, so are cakes.

And photography is forbidden, just as it is throughout the jail.

A correction officer watches over the ceremony. Some inmates are brought to the chapel in handcuffs, which are removed for the wedding.

While the Rikers Island chapels are nondenominational, the bride and groom can pay $50 to a jail-approved officiant to perform a ceremony in a particular religion.

“It’s a real quick service,” said the deputy warden for programs, Hakim El-Quhir, surveying the stark chapel room and its towers of stacked plastic chairs at the Rose M. Singer Center, where women are held.

“They come here, they say ‘I do,’ and they kiss, all teary-eyed.” he said. “And he is on his way.”

Conjugal visits are not allowed at Rikers, even for the newly wed. But once married, the couples can apply for a chance for time alone if the incarcerated spouse is moved to one of the state prisons that allow such visits.

But sometimes the reason for getting married at Rikers is simpler.

“They said they were in love and had planned to get married on the outside,” said Pastor Staton, 52. “Until the groom somehow messes up, gets busted and ends up in jail.”

Sometimes, there is such demand for weddings that they take place in a group, with one bride witnessing for another if no guests come.

On a recent weekday, Pastor Staton married five couples in one session at the George Motchan Detention Center, a men’s unit. Because there was a group, the ceremonies took place in the counseling center, where inmates usually confer with their lawyers in transparent cubicles.

He placed each couple in a cubicle and then made his way to each of them. He counseled the couples, blessed their rings, and read a passage from the Bible: Ephesians 5:22-26, which talks about the relationship between wives and husbands. When it was all over, he said they could kiss.

One was a young couple from New Jersey. She was 21 and he was 27, and expecting to be shipped to an upstate prison.

Pastor Staton, who ministers at a nondenominational church in East New York, Brooklyn, the New Creation Ministry, sometimes keeps in touch with the couples that he marries at Rikers.

In ceremonies, he gives the couples a stern talking-to, telling the men to “listen to what your wife is telling you.”

“I give it to them raw and uncut,” he said. “Especially the men. They got no business being locked up.”