Ormoc Wedding Fair 2011 opened

ORMOC CITY ,Philippines  — The city's Tourism Council yesterday started the Kasalang Barangay (June 6 to 10) as part of the celebration for the coming city fiesta.

City Councilor Lea Villar, who conceptualized the Kasalang Barangay, told The FREEMAN the event has been intended to showcase Ormoc as a tourist hub, considering the city's popularity as the choice destination in Eastern Visayas for conventions, seminars, meetings, study tours, social and religious activities.

The Kasalang Barangay also provides a venue for wedding-related businesses and helps couples make their dream wedding come true, said Villar.

Gown designers, beauty specialists, product providers, photographers, florists, souvenir suppliers, wedding coordinators, hotels, restaurants and destination proprietors have booths inside the City Hall lobby to display, demonstrate and sell their respective products through the 4-day event.

The exhibitors will be organized into wedding teams who then will sponsor selected barangay couples who got married in a civil wedding officiated by Mayor Eric Codilla last year.

The selected couples will have a church wedding, in a traditional Filipino ceremony complete with pre-nuptial photo sessions in Lake Danao Natural Park, Pineapple Plantation, Julio's Mangrove, Leyte Golf and Country Club, JICA Flood Mitigation Project and the century-old Fuente de la Reina.

They will also be entertained with traditional wedding songs and dances by the Ormoc Culture and the Arts Council, and the Ormoc Choreographers Guild. On June 10, they will go into a mass wedding at the Sts. Peter and Paul Church, followed by a banquet at the Ormoc Superdome.

Villar said there will be a contest for the most lovely couple, best in make-up, best in wedding attire, best wedding gown and best barong, best make-up artist, most organized wedding team, best photo, best booth and best in preparation for the church ceremony.

During the opening day yesterday, a tourism awareness symposium was held by the Tourism Department-Region 8, and the induction of new officers of the Ormoc Hotel and Restaurant Association, OCG, and the Ormoc Souvenir and Pasalubong Multi-purpose Cooperative.