Though we’ve written before about incorporating your furry friend into your wedding festivities, we recently received a press email with “experts” weighing in on why including your pet in your big day can be beneficial to the couple. Online shop GroomsDay, along with statistics gathered from The Canine Times, sited a pet’s ability to keep one grounded, creating picture-perfect moments and making more formal moments feel less formal among the reasons why couple’s should include their animals.
As we are dog people, we will take any opportunity to talk about our fur-children and how to include them in our other favorite thing to talk about — weddings.
A few years ago, we shared the top five ways to incorporate your pet in celebratory events three of our favorites included using them as inspiration for your groom’s cake, adding their image to a koozie to give out as a favor and sending your guests home with a “doggie bag” made specially for their pets.
We are rounding out those five with five more to make it an even 10 ways to bring your four-legged bestie into your Big Day.
Photo Booth Accessories
Many a bachelorette party has sported a large cutout of the groom’s face or smaller pieces of the groom’s likeness and used them as accessories for taking pictures and posing in funny places. We suggest taking this idea but incorporating your pet and bringing the cutout into either your hired photo booth vendor or placing items around tables or other reception locations and encouraging your guests to snap a picture. Not only will you get fun images of your friends and family, but your pet will be equally as included.
Swizzle Sticks and Cocktail Napkins
Signature cocktails are all the rage in the wedding world. We’ve talked about adding your pet’s image in photos or illustrations printed on invitations or table numbers, but take it a step farther and have them embossed onto a cocktail swizzle stick or cocktail napkins placed right up in front of the bar. They can’t imbibe themselves, but doesn’t mean they can’t be a part of the fun.
Wax Seals
Maybe it’s our love of costume dramas with secret, wax-sealed correspondence between royalty or our love for those little touches of elegance, a wax seal, in our opinion, is a classic. Whether invitations or adorned onto ribbons or cards, a wax seal can add just the pop needed to complete decorations and favors. Getting the seal adorned with your pet is the perfect personal touch.
R.S.V.P. and Thank You Cards
Yes, stationary is a no-brainer, but sometimes we can forget about the smaller elements of an invitation suite. Adding your pet onto an R.S.V.P. or thank you card will make the smaller item more memorable, and for the R.S.V.P. card, anything that helps ensure the most returns is a boost.
Apparel and Accessories
As more and more brides and grooms veer from traditional wedding garb, this opens up opportunity for even more personality when it comes to your wedding apparel and accessories. For the grooms we suggest adding your pet’s likeness onto socks, tie, pocket square, lining of the jacket or even a bowtie. For the ladies, you can add a pin or brooch, a handkerchief to carry or wrap around your bouquet. Another idea is to opt for a hair pin or piece that has an outline or image of your pet.
In our last writeup, we noted that the New York Times reported that over 50 percent of millennials preferred their pets over their siblings and parents, while 30 percent would say the same in comparison to their romantic partner.
With those statistics in mind, it looks like we’ll be talking about adding pets into wedding celebrations for many years to come.
Original 5 ways to include your pet:
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- Groom’s Cake
- You can have your cake and eat it too … The groom’s cake is the perfect opportunity to include your pet in your celebration. Though many couples have added a little figurine or flourish to their main wedding cake, the groom’s cake offers more creativity. You can ask your bakery to create a miniature version of your pet or some sort of scene that includes your furry friend.
- Koozies
- There are few Southerners that don’t own more koozies than they can count. Kelly here: I often find a rogue koozie in a pot or random drawer. They are also frequently used as party favors for weddings and events. Whether you’re going local with GEM Printing or New Orleans Cufflinks or ordering online, it’s a pretty easy task to customize a koozie with your pet’s face and wedding day information.
- “Doggie Bag”
- Whether you’re coming home from your mom’s house or a nice restaurant, who doesn’t love leaving with a doggie bag? Opt for your own “doggie bag” as your wedding favor. Add in a sweet treat for human and something special for Fido. We even suggest popping in a specialized cookie with your pet’s likeness.
- Charitable Give-Back
- Especially for those who already have everything they need in their homes, opting for a charitable donation instead of a gift or along with a honeymoon fund is a popular option. When requesting donations in lieu of gifts, ask guests to donate to a local animal rescue such as Zeus’ Place or the LaSPCA in your pet’s name.
- Additions: Décor/Invitation
- Possibly one of the easiest ways to incorporate your pet is to add a drawing or watercolor of them to your engagement announcement, wedding invitation, ceremony program, seating charts and/or table décor.
