Pets the Night of the Wedding

I've used Rover once before and had a good experience, I'll be boarding my dog for the wedding not sure about the honeymoon, my mom might be willing to watch her. My neighbors often have someone stay at their house with their dog, someone from Rover but that scares me lol - don't want someone I don't know staying at my house.

We're planning on having one of our neighbors watch him for us! We live in an apartment complex, and have gotten to know a few people there with pets! If that doesn't work out, then we're just going to have someone from the local college watch him for us. We've done this before by posting on the college's Facebook page that the students use to buy and sell stuff, and also ask for advice!

We'll of course have meet and greets with the student if we end up having to do the second option. Our dog doesn't get separation anxiety, so as long as he has someone familiar to let him out etc., he's good lol.

We have friends that have used Wag before and they love it!

I'm planning to board my dog. While I do feel bad that she'll be alone and I will miss her a lot, I know she will be in great hands. I worry that having someone come to my home will end in disaster; the well-meaning dog walker lets her escape or she gets away during the walk or something like that. I have more trust in a vet clinic that is giving her full-time supervision and care in an enclosed facility. I think it could work if you develop trust and a good relationship with a dog walker or dog sitter well in advance of your wedding, otherwise boarding is a safer option.

We typically have either had a college student stay at our house, boarded our dog at a kennel, or had him stay at a friends house when we are away.

Our wedding venue provides an AirBnB for the weekend (no pets allowed) and we wanted our dog to be at our wedding (but not the reception) so originally had been planning some complicated logistics to get him back and forth. Due to Covid, we ended up eloping and had our dog there for that, so no longer feel the need to include him in our bigger event, which will really simplify things!

I have the same problem with my dog, weve had him for about five months and havent left him alone for more than about 4.5 hours because of his separation anxiety. I found a really good daycare that we will leave him at the day of our wedding, they had amazing reviews so I trust them. It might give you more peace of mind to find a really good daycare so youre not worried about him being alone and coordinating who will go take care of him at your house. We also had our vet tell us about a medication dogs can take for severe separation anxiety

Are you going home the night of the wedding? We left ours at home. Husband got ready at home then we went home after the reception. It was just like us being at work for the day.
I don’t have any experience with those companies, but I understand your anxiety about tour pets. I hope you find a good solution.

I am a new dog owner and had not even considered this issue yet! Luckily I have some time still..



Previously, I walked dogs for a family friend for 3 days while they organized and held their son's wedding out of town. 2 decently long walks a day, 3 when possible, and the dogs were fine. Another friend of the family had me stay at their house for 1 1/2 weeks because they had a death in the family and had to go to Europe very suddenly. That dog had severe separation anxiety and would chew on doorframes and other wood trim if he was alone too long. Depending on how your dog's anxiety manifests you might choose different options.

I completely understand your concern here. We have a dog that suffers from separation anxiety as well. I am home all day with him, and he has literally never been alone for even an hour of his entire life. I am beyond stressed out about what to do with him during our wedding, since all of our usual “babysitters” will be in attendance. I am currently considering three options, so maybe one of these could be something you could consider as well:


1. We have a highly rated doggy daycare near us, so I may start taking him there for one hour per day (and probably staying there with him while he plays the first couple weeks to make the transition as smooth as possible), then slowly increasing the amount of time he is there to slowly acclimate him, until he can spend an entire day away from me. I know the daycare also offers home visits in hour increments to play with the dog, walk them, feed them, make sure they do their business, etc. so if you find a place your dog enjoys and you feel comfortable with the employees, you could always ask if they offer that sort of service.
2. I am going to start asking family members and closest friends who they use for dog sitters. I am much more inclined to trust someone that my nearest and dearests trust. Maybe if your family or friends have someone they use, you could interview them and try them out to see how your dog responds. The more time the dog gets to spend with a new person, the more comfortable and less anxious he will be the day of your wedding with them.
3. As a last resort, the breeder we got our dog from has graciously offered to keep him for the wedding and the entire duration of our honeymoon. We completely trust her with him obviously, but they live in another state which would require us to drive him 7 hours away. So not ideal. But definitely an option if it’s what’s best for him.

We actually left our dog at the hotel during the wedding. We had a shorter, daytime wedding so we’re gone from 9 am-5pm(ish) but we probably would have done the same if it would have been 3pm-11pm. Most hotels offer a dog walking service but we viewed it as the same length of time we’d be gone during a workday. It was great to come home to him and “celebrate”

My dog will be our ring bearer and then we are either going to have my FHs brother drive him back to our house which is like 10 minutes fine the road from our venue.... does your place have any rooms available on site that allows dogs? This was also an option we were given for our baby. If this is an option it might be best to get a room on site for your pup and hire someone to watch him/her the whole time.

Our pup that we're considering having in the wedding does really well in a kennel, and FH's Aunt/Uncle live 5-10 minutes down the road, so she'll probably be there that morning and come to the ceremony and then back over for most of the night.

If my older boy is still around we'll have someone come watch him. I'm lucky that my sister works for a doggie daycare and they always have workers that moonlight as dog sitters, so we'll probably hire one of them. Might have them transport our pup back and forth too.

For the honeymoon I have a younger brother and his GF that will likely stay at our house to watch our two dogs and our two cats.

If you have any local doggie daycares in your area you could try them out for a few weeks and see if you like any of the employees enough to welcome them into your home.

Luckily our fur baby - also my emotional support animal - is an indoor/outdoor cat. He generally just chills in the apartment all day taking naps on various bits of furniture and then goes out hunting at night. (Backstory: He was a barn cat before adopting us.) FH and his groomsmen are getting ready at our apartment, so he'll feed and water the cat (you know what I mean....) before he leaves for the venue. We have friends who live less than a mile away from us who we're asking to swing by on their way home to feed him again and check his water situation. They're also likely the ones who will be feeding/watering him while we're on our honeymoon. Agent 47 (our cat) is really skittish around people, especially those he hasn't previously met, so we figured it would be best for him to stay at a familiar place.

If you're moving in a few weeks and the wedding isn't until October, hopefully you'll make friends with neighbors you can trust to take care of your sweet Simba while you're getting married! Or maybe not neighbors, but if you find another dog/owner combo at a local dog park that you hit it off with that could potentially work. I've never had a dog myself, but I've had friends who met people at dog parks who ended up taking care of their dogs while they went on vacation. The dogs were able to form a friendship and the owner was deemed to be responsible enough to take care of their precious pup.

Thanks everyone for your comments! We are going to start interviewing/ meeting with people on Rover to hopefully get him accustomed to the person ahead of time!