My little dog – a heartbeat at my feet.

The love we have for our dogs knows no bounds. We routinely share our food, our beds, our most private thoughts, our happiness and our sadness with our furkids. There is no comfort known to us like the comfort of our dogs. A smart spouse knows to never try and come between us and our dog. (Mr. Susan didn’t know this when we first started dating, but you can be sure that 15 years later, these are words by which he lives.) I’ve shot weddings with dogs involved, and lots of e-sessions. It makes total sense to me that you’d want to share the best day of your life with your other best friend, your other soulmate.

My love for dogs and my volunteer work with shelters has led me to so many other “dog people”. The internet is so vast, yet it seems so small, because hardly a day goes by that I don’t meet & befriend another person whose dogs are the love of his/her life. Like me. Like Colleen.

Colleen is an amazing ball of energy; running so many websites, magazines and companies, including The Wedding Dog. When she first found me online, and we had our first conversation, it was like…well, it was like taking to another me. We talked for an hour straight without a single pause between the two of us. It was the love of dogs that brought us together, but it was our total lack of charisma that made us best friends (that’s an inside joke).

But I digress.

One of Colleen’s specialties is helping couples find a way to involve their dog(s) in their wedding. This is brilliant! I wish I’d had the sense to do this when Mr. Susan and I got married. I mean, think about it: you’ve gathered all your loved ones in one place to witness one of the biggest, and happiest, days of your life. Everyone who means something to you is there. If a dog is part of your life, how can you even consider not having him/her there as well? You can’t. It’s unthinkable.

You may think that having your dog at the wedding is a no-brainer, but…um, yeah, you’d be wrong. You don’t want the dog doing his business on the aisle, right? (I’m sure it’s happened.) And you can’t take the chance that Fido is going to lift his leg on Grandma’s chair (or, was that her leg?). Oh, that would be such bad juju (and not to mention a high risk of having your wedding gift reclaimed).

Aside from helping you plan the part of the wedding where you dog is involved, she has a line of these awesome little couture pieces for your dog to wear. Nothing frilly or lacy, but outstanding and definitely this side of not making your dog feel ridiculous.

I’m honored that Colleen has added me as her photographer of choice for her clients. Hopefully, this will lead to lots more connections with dog people for me, and seriously, can you ever know enough dog people? I think not.

Check out her site, check out the couture (yes, it’s distinguished enough for male dogs too), and please do check out her other sites. Bonus: she donates 30% of the earnings from The Wedding Dog to rescues & shelters. That makes me completely love her (as if I didn’t already).

(Oh, and the title of this post is a lovely quote by Edith Wharton. I don’t think I could ever say it better.)