Awards!

SF Bay Guardian "Best of the Bay" Award
2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008!
Voted Best Wedding Gift Not Listed in the Registry
Best Couples Counselor

SF Bay Guardian Winner - Five Years in A Row!

To celebrate their status as Mr. and Mrs. (or Mr. and Mr. or Mrs. and Mrs.), you can do better for your newly betrothed friends than a nonstick bundt pan. Instead, send them to relationship boot camp with Dr. Michelle Gannon and Dr. Patrick Gannon, two local psychologists who are a happily married couple themselves. Their get-tough motto? Love isn't enough. The husband-and-wife therapists, who both do couples counseling in their individual practices, teach Marriage Prep 101 as a lecture course for the engaged, including lots of private exercises, worksheets, and quizzes for the spouses-to-be. The Gannons aren't shy about making examples of themselves and sharing their own interpersonal foibles. They coach new couples to frankly talk with each other about their expectations for money, sex, kids, work, religion, and infidelity — what they call marriage planning, which can often get railroaded in the florist-and-caterer orgy of wedding planning. The theory is that while the disgustingly happy lovebirds are still in that "magic window" of googly-eyed bliss, they're more open to learning skills for handling the inevitable sources of conflict that will emerge. Marriage Prep 101 is a secular, nonsexist alternative to premarital counseling in the church, designed to leave the bride and groom vowing to love, honor, and process. 417 Spruce, S.F. (415) 905-8830.