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(Okay, I know that’s the lamest post title EVER. Sorry. My brain is not working today, forgive me.)
So, I don’t know if y’all have noticed this yet, but I love my dogs.
Like, a lot.
I love that every day when I come home, they come dashing to see me, and yes, I even love that Ranger gets so excited to see me that he jumps up on me and almost knocks me over with his huge self. And I love that Cullen likes to find the most awkward possible spot to cuddle with me (like directly on my pillow when I’m trying to sleep, pushing my head off of the pillow. Or, you know, on top of my head).
I love how insanely cute they are. (Inserting obligatory adorable photos here)
Cullen, giving his trademark “I’m the cutest dog ever” face.
Ranger, graduating from puppy obedience class. Doesn’t he just look like he’s saying “Gosh, mom, stop taking so many pictures”?
The boys in their favorite spot in the whole duplex. I love that Cullen is standing on the pillows to be tall enough to see out the window. 
So, yeah. My dogs. Love ‘em. They’re awesome, and they’re a huge part of my life.
But we’re not including them in the wedding.
And, honestly, it’s a really sad decision for me. I really, really want to have them there, and I really want to get some amazing photos with my dogs on my wedding day. I mean, how beautiful are these?
Rebekah J. Murray
This photo of hive member KellyV and one of her dogs just makes my heart happy. I love it.
My friend (and hive member) Kjpugs got some ridiculously adorable photos with her pugs on her wedding day!
If I love all of these photos so much, why are we choosing to leave our dogs out of the fun? Well, the problem is that our dogs have energy. Like…a lot of it. I’ve tried for weeks to get a video of my dogs being crazy just for the purpose of this post, but they’re so fast and loud that I can’t even capture them on video. But trust me on this one. They like to run laps around the house, jump over furniture (literally—Ranger’s new favorite activity is jumping over the back of our big chair into our laps. It’s quite a shock when you aren’t expecting it!) and bark a lot.
And even when they are calm, there’s the issue of all of the people at the wedding. Cullen loves people. So much so that when we have company, he ends up in their laps within the first five minutes of them getting there, and won’t leave them alone until they leave the house. He wants to be everyone’s best friend. And Ranger? Well he isn’t so fond of strangers. He’s not aggressive by any means, but he’s an extremely (EXTREMELY) skittish and shy dog, and he likes to bark at people that come to visit for the first thirty minutes they’re there, which tends to scare people because he sounds like a big, scary dog (he totally isn’t).
So, when I picture my dogs being in the wedding, I can just see Cullen jumping up on everyone as he walks down the aisle, trying to get some love and attention, and Ranger trying to run in the opposite direction to get away from all of the unfamiliar people. This is not exactly an ideal way to have my puppies come down the aisle.
So, then, the thought was that maybe we would just have them there so we could take photos with them. But then there’s the issue that our venue is at least 30 minutes from anyone’s house, and what would we do with them during the ceremony and reception? We don’t want to hire someone to take care of them in the hotel room because Ranger is so skittish, it would be torture for him. And asking anyone to take them home in between the ceremony and reception would mean they’d miss half the partying.
In the end, as much as we would have liked for it to work, it just wasn’t going to happen. We’re still playing around with ideas for how to incorporate them into the day—we may even bring them along for a day after shoot or something when we get back from the honeymoon! I’m definitely sad that they won’t be with us on our wedding day, but I know they’ll be insanely excited to see us when we get back from the honeymoon, and this solution will really be the best decision for both us and them.
Did you have your dogs (or other pets!) in your wedding?
Your dogs are waaaaaaaaay cute. It’s too bad they can’t be in the wedding 
I’m trying to figure out how to get the cat to come around to the backyard but with that many people there she’ll probably be hiding under my bed. We’ve got a rabbit too but I’m worried he’ll get nervous and try to bust out of his cage if we put it in the backyard.
We had the same problem with our little pom… my solution was to include him in our engagement and bridal portraits. We then posted them at the wedding, so everyone could see them, and we felt like he was there in spirit.
That pic of kjpugs is pretty much my favorite picture ever posted on WB. But then again, I am biased towards pictures with adorable pugs.
I am so sad that my pugs aren’t allowed at either the church or reception site. We have to board them for the entire time we are in Florida for our wedding.
Cute dogs!
Our were in the wedding and we have some cute pictures of them in the tie and bow tie, but I can totally understand. My dog, Leonidas (Leo), is crazy, however he actually behaved himself for the most part.
Clearly the solution here is the Dog Whisperer. I can see him at your wedding now making that magical shushing noise that all dogs seems to react to.
On a more realistic note, I absolutely love that pug picture in your post. I gawked and giggled for a good 5 minutes before I could finish reading.
Cardy, I have the same problem! I have an adorable little Silky Terrier named Cooper and boy is he full of energy! He also LOVES to bark and honestly, loves is an understatement. Lucky for me, we are getting married in Jamaica, so the destination location made the decision for us. That and sometimes Coop’s daddy can get rather annoyed with him 
Aww…i know how you feel. I love my pooch but he’s a submissive/excitable piddler and I am nervous about him being around so many people and having an accident! Plus I don’t want to worry about who’s taking care of him throughout the day etc. I did think I could have him come in while i’m getting ready for some pics.
We’ve been discussing the same thing. Fiance has a golden retriever who is like, our baby, he’s mostly well behaved, but he does jump on people, and he doesn’t listen to anyone except my fiance. So yeah I’m also afraid that he’d be jumping all over everyone and that he won’t listen to anyone. Hopefully we’ll include him in our engagement photos, but he might be left out of the wedding
I have the same issue. I could not love my Molly more. I wanted her in the wedding…but logistically, it would not make sense. I also think she’d be miserable and I don’t want to do that to her.
So, I think I may carry a photo of her on a charm on my bouquet. Of course it is nowhere near the same, but at least she will have some sort of presence. I am sure she would much rather be at the dog spa playing with the other dogs, than standing outside looking at squirrels she can’t chase or holed up in a hotel room.
I have the same problem. I want Ginny to be my flower girl or ring dog SO bad!!! But FI insists that she’s got too much energy and it won’t go well. Plus, she’s pretty picky about who she barks at and don’t know how she’ll take the crowds. BTW, Cullen is too cute!!
FI has a service dog so not necessarily the same thing since she isn’t a pet, but she is a big part of our lives and we love her like our own. We toyed with the idea of her being our flower pup, but she’s been trained to stay with FI so we could see a few problems with this scenario. She’ll be sitting next to him wearing a wreath of flowers. She is going to look so pretty!
We had the same dilemma! I desperately wanted my three dogs to be a part of our wedding, but I just don’t think they could have handled all the excitement! Looking back, I feel like we made the right choice, but I still wish I had photos with them on our wedding day!
Our pooch Ace is going to be in our photos since we are doing them prior to the wedding. I’m having someone go pick him up and take him back home. Yes, it’s a 15 minute drive but it is pretty important to us. He was a gift from me to my fiance two years ago for Valentine’s - and my fiance used him to propose to me at Christmas.
it saddens me to think that our lil pug Roxi won’t be with me the day of our wedding.. but she’d really just be too too much. She also enjoys people so much that she ends up in laps and she gets soo excited when new people are around that she starts doing laps around the house as fast as she can. We are desperately trying to include her in our engagement shoot.. we just need to find someone to come with us so they can be the puppy handler 
ps. i heart the pic of your friend with the pugs! absolutely, in your face, cute!
I really really wanted my sweet beagle Finlay to be in the wedding. I love those pictures of dogs at weddings too, and Finlay is such a dear and would have behaved very well. Plus, he’s a part of our family. Unfortunately, he ran away from our friends who were keeping an eye on him the morning of the wedding! So, I was out searching (along with everyone else) for him from 9 until 3, and was married at 4 without Finlay there. He was probably having a great time in the woods! He came back the next night (it was raining, he hates rain!) and all was well, aside from the craziness of two days of searching for the dog thrown in with regular dog craziness!
SO moral of the story was… probably only a good idea to have a dog around if he is comfortable with a LOT of strangers. Finlay apparently is not! And he didn’t seem to mind missing the wedding one bit!
We won’t be having our little Maltese in the ceremony either - so I decided to include him in our table numbers! I am taking pics of him with individual wooden numbers all over our house and outside. So far they’re really cute - I’m really excited he’ll still be a ‘part’ of our day without actually being there.
Their soooo cute! I wish I coulda had pics with my baby but we had a destination wedding and a beach house that was not pet friendly.
They are adorable! I know what you mean though. My dog Lola would be the cuddle bug on everyone’s lap and jumping on them and Jimmy would be terrified and would run the other way and hide or bark at people. I think the day after shoot would be the perfect way to incorporate them into the wedding.
Okay, so we apparently have the same dogs! Same behavioral issues, same size, same energy…
I really want them to be a part of the wedding, but we are going to leave them with a dog sitter at my FILs house instead. When we take Chloe (our big dog) to new places or there are lots of new people around she freaks out so bad that it breaks my heart. Having her there for the wedding would be like torture for her, so once I came to that realization it was a lot easier to give up on my dream of having the dogs with us on our wedding day.
Your dogs are adorable! We have two cats, and while we love them, we know it will be extremely difficult to have them participate.
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Mrs. Cardigan, Austin Age and Occupation: 21, Student/Soon-to-be Special Education Teacher Fiance's Age and Occupation: 20, Student/Soon-to-be Accounting Systems Analyst Engagement Date: August 16, 2009 Wedding Date: January 2011 Venue: Vintage Villas About Me: I'm a native Austinite who was raised as a die-hard Aggie. Luckily, I'm a pretty persuasive girl because I managed to convince my high school boyfriend (now fiance!), Mr. Cardigan, to ditch his hardcore Longhorn ways and join me up at A&M, where we currently reside with our adorable dogs, Cullen & Ranger. We're currently planning a bright, cheery wedding with a ridiculous amount of DIY projects that I can't wait to tackle! I love crafting in any form, reading, and margaritas (I think I love them the most!). Organization is what keeps me sane and I love helping others, which is probably why I ended up as an education major. It gets a little chaotic sometimes when you're planning a wedding among all of the papers, projects, finals, and certification exams, but we're having the time of our lives and we can't wait to get started on our journey as husband and wife - and we're so excited to share our wedding with the hive!
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