The canonical (non-) interview

one of the requirements to be able to marry at our church, chapel on the hill, is a canonical interview with msgr. arturo boonggaling, bishop of lipa. thankfully, he holds office on saturdays, so marlon and i decided to show up at his doorshep -- or viewdeck, since he holds office at the viewdeck of canyon woods in tagaytay. the "appointment" marlon made was for 9:00 a.m. sharp. we couldn't be late, warned the bishop, because he had to say mass at 11:00 a.m.

but really, what else can you expect from the infamous "bara-bara couple"? if you sit me down for coffee, i can tell you about all the plan-less vacations, expired passports, wrong-date-booked tickets, barely-made it boat rides, and missed flights that have characterized our relationship.

and so, after vowing to wake up at five and be off to tagaytay at six (after picking up marlon's baptismal and confirmation certificates at his house in qc), what did we do? wake up at seven! yay! that was a record drive to tagaytay, i must say. less than two and a half hours, with a two-way trip to quezon city squelched in for good measure!

we made it to canyon woods, breathless and sheepish, at around 10:30 a.m.

breathless and sheepish

fortunately, what we thought was an appointment at 9:00 a.m. was actually just the start of the bishop's office hours. so we queued up with other couples who were getting interviewed, enjoyed the breeze and the sunshine at the viewdeck, and filled up a couple of forms while waiting.

now, the interview... was kind of a non-interview. we were all ready to chat up a storm with the bishop about how we met, why we decided to get married, and all the other sundry questions we thought a bishop might like to know about two people getting hitched.

but he barely asked us anything about ourselves! he went over the questionnaire we filled up about marriage impediments -- no, i am not being kidnapped or coerced; no, we have not been married to other people; no, we are not related even if we kind of look alike.

then he filled out a couple of forms to give our parishes -- wedding banns, which notify people in our parish of our intent to marry and allow them to bring up impediments they might know of, and a request letter for my parish to let us marry at chapel on the hill.

the bishop meticulously addressed and folded each of these forms by hand, handed them over to us, murmured about a donation for his parish church. that was that.

we felt both strangely let down and hugely relieved -- nothing that cinnamon rolls (for me) and an extra-large omelette (for marlon) couldn't fix though. and with that, we were off to a late brunch at one of our favorite tagaytay roadside stops: bag of beans!

but that's another story. ;-)