Marriage License: Family planning seminar experience

We only have 3 months left to prepare for our wedding and we haven't filed for our marriage license yet. So last Tuesday we decided to file for it. To get a marriage license couples should first attend a family seminar in the city hall where either one of the couple is residing. It only took us almost 2 hours because there were a lot of couples who came in late. So when were finally complete we were ask to come inside the room per couple because they have to ask each pair some confidential questions like, if you are living together, if your pregnant at the moment or already have children and where you plan to live after getting married. Even the place where you are planning to get married is part of the questions that couples should answer.
So to make the story short the seminar began after the long wait. We first discussed things about documents , from the marriage license, marriage contract up to your soon to be children birth certificate which is I think very informative and helpful.

After about 20 minutes of NSO discussion , a woman about 40 to 45 years of age entered the room, and told us that she will be discussing family planning. She looks scary at first , but after introducing herself she began to discussed sensitive issues about human anatomy. Woman and men reproductive system to be exact. It was fun though . There were a lot of laughing and naughty thoughts from the couples. She also discussed, different kinds of contraceptives that can be use by the couples. It was a really great experience. So after 10 to 11 working days, we can get our marriage license yey!!!

Marriage License Requirements in the Philippines

We have less that 4 months to prepare for our wedding but it seems like I still have a lot of things to do despite the fact that I already accomplished almost half of our wedding preparation.

Anyway, after this 2010 New Year celebration, we're going to file for our marriage license. Actually I wanted to file it as early as possible so that I don't need to worry about it, but I learned that the license is only valid for 120 days or else it will be invalid and you have to get and pay another license, so I have to wait until January to file for our license. By researching, I also learned that me and my fiance should file a sworn application separately for each license with the proper civil registrar. Another thing is that we have to wait fo another 10 days from filing before we can get our marriage license. I've also read in some article that one reason for the wait, is that they have to post the name of the person who are filing for marriage license in a bullitine board for the citizens to see... Why? I'm not sure if it's for real... hihihihi!!!

Here are the requirements in applying for a Marriage License :

* Original Birth Certificate : Certified True Copy of the Couple. This should be issued by NSO with respective registry number.

* Parent's Consent : For 18-21 years old ; and Parent's Advise For 21-25 years old. In the Philippines 18 years old is the legal age to get married but a written consent from their parents or gurdian is needed. While the contracting party from 22-25 of age should present a written advise from their parents or gurdian indicating that they are aware or the couples marriage. (We don't actually need this in our case, since I'm already 26 and my fiance just turned 29 yesterday).

* Certificate of Attendance : It's a kind of seminar or most commonly known as Pre-marital counseling and Family planning seminar. This should be conducted by the Division of Maternal and Child Health at the City Hall in the same municipality where the couple filed for the marriage license.

* CENOMAR "Certificate of no Marriage" (Singleness): This is to certify that neither of you have been married before. I'm not sure if it's really required because I read some thread that some couples didn't even use their CENOMAR . I still need to ask about this.