NEW YORK, NY September 29, 2005 —More than 40 percent of New York City babies are born to unmarried couples. In some neighborhoods, according to recent statistics, it’s almost 80 percent.

REPORTER: In Brooklyn, a novelist, a minister and others are trying to reverse the trend among African-Americans. WNYC’s Fred Mogul reports on an all-expense-paid wedding today for 10 couples who are “unmarried with children.”

VOICE: Guys – ready?!? Let’s line up…

REPORTER: A wedding planner barks orders to couples and their attendants. She tells the grooms to groove their way down the aisle and position themselves at the altar. Clayton Morgan hams it up, with stop-and-slide moves and pistol-pointing fingers. Later, after the rehearsal, he and his fiancé, Tanisha Forbes, explain why they decided to tie the knot today.

MORGAN: When you’re married, people take you more seriously, then just going in and saying, ‘I have kids and a baby’s mother, because…’Forbes: You need the support, too, you need the support. Morgan: Absolutely. I know she’s behind me 150 percent. I can make the most idiotic decision, and she’ll support me -- so that’s genuine love and you don’t pass that up!

REPORTER: And so it goes on the first-ever “Mary Your ‘Baby Daddy’ Day.” The idea is the love child, um, brain child of Mary Ann Reid. She is neither married nor a mother, but she is the energetic, 30-year-old author of the newly published African-American chick-lit novel, “Marry Your Baby Daddy.” It’s about three sisters who can only inherit a million dollars from their grandmother if they marry their children’s fathers within six months. Reid says like a lot of people, she is concerned about the future of the black family and wants to offer a different vision to her contemporaries.

REID: I really think it has to do with black women. I think we’ve blamed black men enough for being unemployed and being in jail, but I always think women set the tone in their relationships, and once men know what they can expect from them, they can act accordingly.

REPORTER: So Reid enlisted a battalion of wedding dress designers, tuxedo renters, photographers, florists, caterers and musicians. She received about 500 applicants – many of them from men -- and selected 10. She wanted couples who weren’t just in it for the free wedding, couples with a long track record -- in short, couples who only needed a little ‘nuptial nudge.’

REID: They were together 5 years, 7 years, 11 years, and they didn’t marry. Many of them told me no one is married around them. It wasn’t like a big deal. The stigma for having a child out of wedlock wasn’t strong enough.

REPORTER: Many of the couples say they were planning to get married, but they “wanted to do it up right.” Millicent Ellis has been together with her partner Garfield James for almost 12 years.

ELLIS: We were ready. It’s just little things. We wanted to have a nice traditional wedding. We didn’t just want to go to City Hall and get it done. We actually were going to save this year to get it done, and then we saw this, and we entered it, and we won, and it’s just a blessing.

REPORTER: Ellis says having a bona fide husband will make her feel more secure, and statistics suggest she’s right, according to David Popenoe, of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University. Married individuals earn more money than their counterparts with similar jobs and education, and their children attain higher educational and income levels, even when adjusted for social differences. Popenoe says marriage can’t single-handedly reverse all social ills or guarantee a couple’s future, but it significantly improves the odds.

POPENOE: The distinctive thing about marriage is that people actually look at it over the long term. That’s sort of what it’s all about. And as problems arise, they think, ‘Well, we ought to work through this.’ Of course, obviously, it’s not all that successful, since we have such a high divorce rate, but it’s certainly more successful than just living with a person, in which the next problem is likely to be a reason for busting up.

REPORTER: The couples recognize that Wedding Day and the marriage that follows won’t simply, automatically transform their lives. But they generally feel it will add to their stability, improve their economic prospects and help forge a better life for their kids. Ellis’s 13-year-old daughter, Nexus, says her mom and step-dad not being married hasn’t affected her life one way or the other. The main difference today will make, she says, is that her mom sure seems happy. Nexus is, too, it’s her birthday, and this is a tough present to top.

Host: Wedding bells ring this afternoon in Brooklyn at the House of God Church, with the Reverend Herbert Daughtry presiding….