Park-style Marriage Registration Center Kicks Off in Wenzhou

On the day (Aug. 22 this year) of the"Qixi" Festival, the Chinese Valentine's Day, the Award Ceremony for the Third Zhejiang Province Marriage Registration and Licence Issuance Skills Competition, the Wenzhou Holistic Marriage Customs Reform Promotion Conference, and the Inauguration Ceremony of the New Site for the Ouhai District Marriage Registration Center were held on the side of the lucid Dragon Boat Lake in the Ouhai central district.

Holding marriage license issuers’ skills competition

Here came a pleasing voice:"I hereby announce that the marriage certification ceremony for Mr. Zhao Ming and Ms. Jin Xin has been completed now..." On the afternoon of Aug. 21, the Third Zhejiang Province Marriage Registration and Licence Issuance Skills Competition took place in the Ouhai District of Wenzhou City. Eleven teams from the civil affairs bureaus of 11 prefecture-level cities across Zhejiang Province participated. The competition simulated scenes at marriage registration and certification windows, and the competitors, as marriage license issuers and witnesses, were required to demonstrate their skills in certification procedures, ceremonial etiquette, language expression and certification presentation.

After a fierce competition on the day before the ceremony was held, the results were announced on the Chinese Valentine’s day: the Cities of Hangzhou, Ningbo, Jiaxing, and Lishui won the first-place award for group performance, and those of Jinhua, Wenzhou, Zhoushan and Huzhou received the second one for the same kind.

According to an official at the Ningbo Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau, the professional marriage licence issuers guide a couple to receive a marriage licence and recite marriage vows, which announce the establishment of marriage in a dignified and sacred ceremony. This helps the couples to assume the responsibilities and commitments that marriage and family entail, and to increase their awareness of the importance and sanctity of marriage.

Advocating simplified wedding

Currently, Wenzhou City is promoting comprehensive marriage customs reform. During the on-site conference for the reform, representatives from the Ouhai District and Taishun County Civil Affairs Bureaus shared their experiences and highlights with attendees, and once again issued Wenzhou's proposal to intensify marriage customs reform and advocateethical and frugal marriage customs.

As the host of the three major events, Ouhai District has been contributing to creating a provincial-level marriage registration demonstration city. Upholding the concept of"easing the burdens of love", the district is promoting new trends in marriage customs and excellent family traditions, as well as the standardized, informationized and intelligent construction of marriage registration, adding to newlyweds’ sense of happiness. The district has launched a series of“Happiness-in-Ouhai”-themed activities for marriage registration, organizing marriage registration events for different groups of people every quarter. This year, it hosted the"Wutian Old Street Waterside Wedding" event on May 20th, holding a collective wedding ceremony for more than a thousand young and elderly couples, and a collective wedding banquet for over 150 elderly ones as well as taking pictures for over 1,000 couples on their golden marriage day. An official from the city’s civil affairs department mentioned that during the certification skills competition, the issuer would advocate couples’ simplifying their wedding, fostering a new trend of marriage customs focusing on the frugality of wedding, and the responsibility and registration of marriage. The reform makes weddings more lofty and newlyweds more responsible for their marriage.

A Park-style Marriage Registration Center kicks off

On the same day when the ceremony was held, the Ouhai District inaugurated the city's first park-style marriage registration center, built to national 5A standards. The center offers services of marriage registration, cultural exhibitions and certification as well as marriage and family counseling.

Located at the spacious and magnificent Wenzhou Dragon Boat Sports Center and near the Asian Games Park with luxuriant plants and showy flowers, the center created an Ouhai-characteristic outdoor wedding celebration base and a love-themed park. Inside the center, there is an Ouhai District Marriage Culture Exhibition Hall, where Ouhai's marriage culture and customs are vividly depicted chronologically in forms of texts, images, videos, and real objects.

The establishment of the Marriage Registration Center will further enhance and diversify the city's marriage culture and its registration services, and so will Ouhai District.On the day the center opened, the Ouhai District Civil Affairs Bureau invited six couple of newlyweds to the new center. A marriage licence issuer (a gold medal winner in the competition) held solemn and romantic marriage certification ceremonies for them at the traditional and modern marriage certification halls respectively. On this special day of the Qixi Festival, the impressive moments will be eternally enshrined in their hearts.(ZhongXin)