Review of Avalon pre marriage course

5cutch

My review of a recent Avalon pre marriage course. Condensed edition: Not great, but cheaper and faster than the others.

What was most important to you about this course?”
Mary and I were filling in customer satisfaction forms at the end of our six hour Avalon pre marriage course. You need to do a pre marriage course to get married in a Catholic church, and my research indicated they were the cheapest (140 quid) and fastest (six hours, one hour lunch break) route to fulfilling this requirement.
I paused a moment and thought it through before writing my answer. Most important?
“The certificate.”
Our course took place in the creatively named Hilton Airport Hotel (8km from the airport) which, in fairness, seemed to do good trade with pilots and air stewards. If you’re in the area, their carvery lunch is excellent.
Recently, I’ve gained some experience in multiplying fixed costs by the number of attendees at a hotel function. It’s become almost automatic and goes some way to explaining why I’ve stopped paying 20c for tomato ketchup in my work canteen. As we sat down and waited for the course leader to set up I counted the chairs and ran the numbers. With 28 couples present, they were pulling in 3,920, or 784 per hour’s work. The optimist in me relaxed, knowing that for this price I’d be getting a high quality product.
Those of you who know me know that my inner optimist is too small to be seen by the naked eye. My inner capitalist started trying to work out how I could get in on the action.
The course was disappointing. This came as a surprise we’d heard great reviews from two sources. In fairness the first two hours were fun; we filled in the kind of quizzes you’d expect to find in a dentist’s waiting room. ‘How well do you know your partner?’ wasn’t the title of any one particular quiz, but it should have been.
There were some good questions on areas couples might not have discussed. For example, who would take a career break to look after the kids? Would you be okay with your partner’s elderly parent moving in?
Below are the areas where I felt the course fell down.
Theology.
I cringed a little when our speaker described Muslims and Jews as seeing Jesus as ‘a prophet, but not the son of God’. This I’m sure will come as a surprise to the Jews. One out of two is, well, awful, when your hourly rate exceeds a week at the average industrial wage.
Finance.
I joke about the tax benefits of marriage. Still, if asked, I can give a relatively coherent explanation of the benefits and drawbacks of joint filing and marriage. From a financial point of view that is. Marriage is a partnership and money is more important these days, so I was surprised to find our speaker blissfully ignorant, and unapologetic. A bride to be in front of me helped out with a basic introduction to tax credits that could have been gleaned had our speaker bothered to spend ten minutes on www.revenue.ie.
We were told that all participants are entitled to free financial advice from their financial advisor. The offer is repeated on their website. I checked this out.
<BOARDS.IE SNIP>
Sex.
Much like my Uni days there was very little sex. It was uncomfortable, awkward and unsatisfying for the participants. Their documentation is here,
but wasn’t covered, or indeed mentioned in the course. The speaker was obviously uncomfortable talking about the subject. If my daily rate would make a banker blush I’d be able to wax lyrical on the subject.
Technology.
Again, this comes back to professionalism. She was unfamiliar with her laptop and the entire room was alerted to the presence of wireless networks every ten seconds by an annoying pop-up. Eventually, with two hours left, she asked if anyone in the room could help. I turned off the message but don’t recall being thanked. Operation of the DVD player also caused a delay.
Psychology.
We spent an inordinate amount of time discussing the pop psychology of birth order. Much like horoscopes, it attempts to assign character traits to individuals based on what seem to be arbitrary criteria. As a firstborn son I’m supposed to be a born leader, a research thinker and live with the fear that I’ll lose love. Were I a secondborn, I’d be obsessed with perfection and order. It goes on. In terms of supporting evidence we had a single slide saying that 75% of CEOs are firstborns. They didn’t cite their sources, but the survey was apparently conducted the same year Vistage surveyed 1,582 CEOs and put the figure at 43%. I’m unable to find any survey supporting their figure and suspect it’s fiction.
Still, I hear you ask. Isn’t 43% a little high? Not really, it’s to be expected with an average family of 2.4 kids. Remember: only children have a 100% chance of being a firstborn. Sitting through this section was tedious and another example of sloppy preparation.
Oddly enough I’d still recommend the course. You’ll need the piece of paper to get a Catholic church wedding, and if you have any relatives with grey hair this is likely to be a sticking point. 140 is expensive for what you get, but cheaper and faster than the alternatives. I should’ve bought my PSP.

(Taken from http://blogs.tenderweddings.com/geoff)

Sergio

Mate im surprised you took the time to write such a long review after listening to 6 hours of BS!!!!
I did my premarriage course in corkcity last weekend,lasted for 3 hours on saturday and then back monday night for less than 30mins to get some feedback.
€120 euro is daylight robbery and a complete money making scheme in my opinion.I went in with an open mind but it was the biggest load of codswallop ive ever heard in all my life!

5cutch

Colinboy wrote: »

Mate im surprised you took the time to write such a long review after listening to 6 hours of BS!!!!

What can I say? Shutting up isn't my forte

taram

It sounds very much like my secondary school education in a nun-run school thanks for the review anyway, though I am thankfully getting away with not having to go through with a church wedding

5cutch

taram wrote: »

It sounds very much like my secondary school education in a nun-run school thanks for the review anyway, though I am thankfully getting away with not having to go through with a church wedding

Glad you're avoiding the pre marriage course. In fairness, what little religious content they had was wrong!

Zaph

A word of warning before anyone rushes off to book their course with Avalon. The parish we're getting married in told us that they wouldn't accept a certificate from Avalon because the course "wasn't Catholic enough". I suggest you check with your parish first before booking a course.

suzieled

Zaph wrote: »

A word of warning before anyone rushes off to book their course with Avalon. The parish we're getting married in told us that they wouldn't accept a certificate from Avalon because the course "wasn't Catholic enough". I suggest you check with your parish first before booking a course.

Thats because with the more expensive courses, they pay a certain percentage back into your parish. But I told my priest I was doing the Avalon one, due to it suiting me timewise better and that was the end of that. Susanne

Zaph

suzieled wrote: »

Thats because with the more expensive courses, they pay a certain percentage back into your parish. But I told my priest I was doing the Avalon one, due to it suiting me timewise better and that was the end of that. Susanne

Well to be honest they didn't really seem to mind where we did it or how cheap it may be, the only place they had an issue with was Avalon.

eyescreamcone

A lot of people who have no faith at all go through with a 'church wedding' because other people would like that 'kinda thing'.

If you don't like doing pre marriage courses etc. Then don't do it.
Grow a pair of balls and tell everyone who insists you have a church ceremony to stuff it.

However, if you are afraid to rock the boat then don't moan about the bullsh1t of all of it.

If you don't attend mass then you are a hypocrite to yourself when you insist on a church ceremony.

On your wedding day - be true to yourself!!!