Best Ways to Incorporate Your Pet into Your Wedding
One of the most requested wedding posts is finally here: how to incorporate your pet into your wedding! So many of you have asked through Instagram for my recommendations on how to include your pet in your big day. Since I personally included our corgi, Winston, in a lot of elements of our wedding, I of course want to share with you what worked well!
Just to clarify: I am going to talk a lot about ways I believe are cute and will work well for my fellow dog parents out there. None of the below suggestions have personally been tested with any other type of animal, so test at your own risk.
In today’s post, I’m going to cover:
– The key to having your pet as a part of your big day
– Ways to Incorporate your pup into your wedding (and what we did personally)
The Key to Having Your Dog Play a Part in your Big Day
Having your pet as a part of your big day or any component of your wedding is special. They are your fur baby – of course you want them involved. The KEY to this is to not overdo it. Pick and choose how you are going to include them, and be sure to keep their best interests in mind. If your dog is the type to get anxious, bringing them to the reception or having them in the wedding as a ring bearer is a terrible idea. That type of thing. Make sure your little ball of fluff is being included in ways that make him/her happy and not stressed out.
How to Include your Pup in your Wedding
Now for the part of the article you are here for: ways to include your pet in your wedding planning! I already mentioned the obvious above – having your dog as a member of the wedding party! If your dog is well behaved and your church/venue allows it, there is no reason to not have him/her as your ring bearer or flower girl. The remainder of this section though is to discuss the less obvious ideas and hopefully inspire you with something you can do on your own big day.
Save the Date Photos
Winston was a very important aspect of our engagement photos. We loved the ones he was in so much, we ended up using the picture he looked best in for our save-the-dates!
The photo we used…
We felt using a photo that included our pup for our save the dates was a lot less “official” than using one for our invitation. It was something cute and fun and a way to give our friends and family a look in at that part of our lives!
Some of our other favorites from that day:
Other articles you may enjoy:
First Look with the Bride
I wrote another post all about my first looks, but 10/10 recommend having a first look with your puppy. It was such a happy moment in our crazy day. Everything moves so fast, and just having that little – maybe silly – low key moment to hug my floof made me feel so much less overwhelmed.
In Your Crest
Winston made an appearance in our wedding crest (of course) and it was so exciting. We ended up using pieces of that crest on some of the decor around our reception and even on the getaway car! I’m working on another article about our crest, but Winston was the part we were most excited about. Even though our venue didn’t allow pets, it made us feel like he was there with us.
Some of the places we used Winston from the crest:
As the Grooms Cake
We surprised my now husband with a corgi groom’s cake wearing a bandana from his college! It looked so much like Winston.
