Pre-marriage Counseling at the Mandaluyong City Hall -- 09.16.09

So what is this about?

Before getting married the legal way, couples must attend the family planning orientation, or known as the "pre-marriage counseling" c/o the Mandaluyong City hall's City Health Office (CHO).

Some people would "skip" it and go ahead with their wedding. We didn't. Aside from the fact that we have no choice because our license will not be released, Dave and I were curious as to how folks here conduct counseling in our hometown. We find this also as a "rare" opportunity -- rare in a sense that we can only do this once in our lifetime. After all, there is and will only be ONE wedding.

Here's a sneak peek on how this thing goes:

Pre-marriage counseling in Mandaluyong only comes once a week at a certain time (Wednesday, 1:00PM). The session is only good for couples aged 25 years old and above, but those who fall below this age category must instead attend the DSWD seminar.

Seminars are usually done in CHO. However, since we had quite a number of couples attending, the venue was moved to a courtroom-like area. I forgot though the actual name of the room. lol.

The first guy who spoke actually started to give an orientation about the process of getting a marriage license, and other how-to's.

What other people don't realize is that there are really important reminders out there that are not really new to most of us. However, hearing it from a 3rd party professional would get the message across the soon-to-be-wed couples.

City Health Officer teaches the "natural" method of family planning through a marker, 

similar to that of a rosary.

After discussions on reproductive health, different methods of family planning and the importance of foreplay before the intercourse (oh yeah, no holds barred on the terms used), the seminar ended at 4:00pm. Since everyone in the venue were deemed to be "mature" audiences, no censor was necessary.

Just right after the entire thing, we received the certificate.

Next, we would be getting our marriage license!