Wedding Blog
Jellyby, our shih tzu, is 50% sweetheart, 25% spoiled princess, and 25% psycho. When she’s with people, she’s all sunshine and lollipops: loving, gentle, and happy.
But dog forbid she gets left at home by herself.
Without company, she becomes completely unhinged. She’ll squawk like a dying chicken, attempt to claw her way out of whatever room she’s in, basically have a total, Telemundo-style meltdown.
We’ve tried a dog shrink (”a canine behaviorist”), expensive medications (liver-flavored Prozac, anyone?), natural remedies (Mr. HC’s still giving me a hard time about my purchase of the “anxiety wrap“), Kongs and other puzzle toys… all to no avail. It’s okay, you can laugh: I have reconciled myself to the fact that I am more Meg Swan than Cesar Milan.
Anyway, this self-flagellation is just context for why we ended up not taking Jellyby with us to our wedding. I wanted so much for her to be “Canine of Honor” — I even bought a darling pearl collar for her from a fancy schmancy pet store — but because of her separation anxiety, we just couldn’t figure out what we were going to do with her post-ceremony. So Jellyby stayed behind in Boston with her godparents, our wonderful neighbors, who spoiled her silly while we were off at our Chewish wedding.
I was determined to include our little drama queen in our celebration, somehow. So I had Moo business cards made with a dozen of our favorite Jellyby photos.
On the back of each card, we printed a note asking our guests to upload photos to our Shutterfly wedding website.
Unfortunately, I didn’t do such a great job making sure they were distributed in a timely manner to our guests, so half of the cards never got handed out. But it made me happy to know that Jellyby made an appearance, if only in 2-D form, at our wedding. And it gave me an excuse to get Moo cards, which, you might remember, make my heart go pitter patter.
Will you be including your pets in your wedding or honoring them in absentia?
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Share this post: Left At Home, But Not Dis-CARDed.
What a great way to include her without going overboard! Our cat Toby made an appearance in our slideshow but I wish I would have thought of this!
I’m totally stealing this idea!! we have to leave our furry babies behind also, but it’d b/c the church and reception site won’t allow them!!
Oh my lord. This is awesome. We were already planning on doing cards that asked folks to upload their photos, but this is just the cutest way of doing it ever. I hope it’s ok if we steal your idea, HC! Our kittens would sure have a lot to say on a moocard.
LOVE that idea! We were going to do table numbers with pictures of our dog, but I love this idea more!
We had two pugs….Elvis and Presley. Elvis would freak out if we left, we soon found out that Pugs have a severe anxiety issue. 
We are making tiny business cards and leaving them at the guests seats to let them know that we are donating money to Pug Hearts (where we got our pug, Elvis, in memory of him).
Presley will be staying with grandpa and granma in-law while we are off honeymooning!
your pup is precious!
I love this! May have to do a canary version… there’s no way our birds will be at our wedding!
Ooo, I love moo cards. I wish I could think of a way to include them in my planning.
Love this idea!! We have 2 huskies who can not come to the wedding They would not be well behaved guests. The table # idea didn’t really fit our motif, but this is the BEST idea ever! Thank you for sharing as we will be borrowing this concept!!
Very cute idea! It would be wonderful if we could do this with our kitties!
So cute!!! I’m itching to incorporate Moo cards into our planning!!
HOW ADORABLE IS JELLYBY???!! Our dogs (Puggle-Bubba and Chesapeake Bay Retriever-Brutus) are actually our ring bearers (er…ring barkers…) because I somehow convinced the church to allow this. Though they are allowed at the reception site, we’re sending them home after photographs. I think we’ll incorporate this as well, we’ve been looking for creative photo upload cards!!
What a wonderful idea. FI have our own little monster at home (lovingly known as the Harley-Monster). Though actually a very sweet pooch, she is a large 70 lb dog with some rescue-related issues, and tends to scare people because she is big. Due to this, the fact that a 3,000 mile flight for our wedding, and the fact that there is no place to leave her after the ceremony, she will not be joining us. We have been thinking of a way to include her in the ceremony, and this is perfect. Thank you!
Too cute! Maybe I should start getting the cats to pose.
So cute! I was already planning on doing something similar — most likely, though, with our engagement pictures. Thanks for sharing!
im definately going to overload my doggie…btw he looks like urs =P better a doggie overload than us overload
I have to figure something out for my pup!
We really wanted our golden retriever to be our “ring-retriever”, but unfortunately our venue doesn’t allow pets
I love the fact that you are including your furry child but please give me any more tips on controlling her seperation anxiety because I cannot get rid of my minauture schnauzzer’s anxiety!!!
btw…ur idea was genius!!
Gosh, so many pet ideas here on weddingbee! Now I have NO excuse for not including our spoiled child! Thanks for the great idea!
This is such a great idea! I was looking for a way to include our little guy and I think this is brilliant! Thanks for sharing 
that is such a wonderful idea….I just planned to put the same floral pattern as our invitations on the cards….but that would be such a great way to include or little seperation anxiety prone fuzzchild as well!
This is adorable! I’m crushed my little hotdog, georgia may, has to stay at home! I’m still trying to figure out some way to incorporate her into the madness. So cute!
Yet another idea I’m taking from your Chewish wedding and importing into my Fewish wedding. (BTW, have already completed my Conversion classes! Now to face the rabbi and the Beit Din.)
I’m also thinking of surprising my FI with a groom’s cake of our furbaby.
That is so cute, I love how you worded it all. Jellyby is so cute as well. Maybe you can include the cards in your thank you cards to get more people to upload photos.
Ah! Great idea! I’m doing doggie table numbers but I may just steal this idea for our photo cards if you don’t mind!
You can also send the extras in your thank you cards! I made sure to get mine out at the reception, but no one uploaded their photos so I figured maybe they left the cards at the reception. So, I figured they would at least make it in their house if they were in their thank you cards…still waiting to see if it worked, but it’s worth the try.
Canine of Honor. Love it. We’re hoping to have our golden retriever participate in our ceremony!
By the way, we’ve had fabulous success with our dog getting over her separation anxiety through the pawsitive dog in Boston — http://www.thepawsitivedog.com. Just an idea.
That is a fantastic idea!
Have you tried doggie day care? Our dog (a Chorkie - Chihuahua/Yorkie Mix) would bark for 8 hours straight (we recorded) when left alone, but somehow our old neighbors accepted it. When we moved to a new condo, our new neighbor would only tolerate 10 minutes before she would call the doorman. Long story short, our only option was day care because nothing else would work. After a few months of day care we would slowly leave Baxter alone and would record his barking. Now he is bark free when we leave. I think he finally realized it is ok to be without Mom and Dad.
@Catalina: I wish I had some brilliant idea. So far, what’s saved us is that a) Jellyby loves hanging out in the car by herself — she’ll happily sleep for hours (but of course that’s only good when it’s not too hot or cold), and b) we take her to dog daycare, and c) we have great neighbors.
@brendaman: Oh yay! Mazel tov. My beit din was wonderful, as was my mikveh. I’ll have to post on it.
@jennred782 and @Lillindy: Such a great idea — I’ll put the extras in the thank you cards!
@amyboston: Thanks! I will definitely check it out.
@CottonCandyWishes: Chorkie and Jellyby seem to have learned their drama from the same book! LOL. We take Jelly to daycare too.
i love this idea! we have a kitty who def won’t be in the wedding but i’ve been trying to come up with ways to get her somehow in there and i was going to make upload cards anyway so this is perfect, thanks for the great idea!
Thanks for the ideas! I am going to try doggie day care more often and check out that website too! I am worried because soon we will have new neighbors so I don’t want them to hate us. I am going to try this ASAP
She’s SO cute - maybe we should have a Boston meet-up soon so she can make an appearance?
Oh, that is such a great idea! I might steal it so we can include our little fur balls, Marlon and Elvis They definitely won’t be there since we live in Germany but get married in the states…
Our dog and cat will be on our cake topper, and we’re going to try to get a “family” portrait or 2 for the table numbers. And we’re going to have pictures around the room that I’m sure they will debut in!
Great idea, HC! Jellyby is so cute…can you bring her along to our next Boston meet-up?
aw how cute! Our dog was in a ton of the engagement photos we used for our table numbers, so our guets got to see a little of him. I still wish he were there for a last minute snuggle before I walked down the aisle:)
Many of you have said here that guests STILL neglected to send you their photos even after you elegantly asked them with a card.
consider http://www.kedaiphoto.com, a high-tech device that lets all your guests seamlessly share their photos with you BEFORE they leave the party. and the device displays their photos on a screen.
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Mrs. Hot Cocoa, Boston/Los Angeles
Age and Occupation: 31, JD/PhD Student
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 32, Medical Student
Engagement Date: May 30, 2008
Wedding Date: March, 2009
Blogging Since: April, 2008
Venue: Ritz Carlton, Marina Del Rey
About Me:
I am a professional student by day and an amateur cupcake taster, bargain shopper, and wedding planner by night. I am obsessed with NPR, the Food Network, paper, dance shows, Anthropologie, post-structuralist theory, Weddingbee!, "The Office," and celebrity gossip. When not procrastinating from my dissertation, I spend time catering to Jellyby, our overly anxious shih tzu, and getting to know Mr. Hot Cocoa. We have only been dating for fifteen years, so it's like I'm in love with a stranger! From the East Coast, we are planning a Jewish-Chinese Extravaganza in L.A., where we both grew up.
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