An animal lover who was getting married to the love of her life asked her bridesmaids to carry shelter puppies instead of flower bouquets during her wedding.
As 32-year-old Florida-based Andee Ondina explained, she asked her friends to trade conventional flower accessories for live props – puppies to be exact.
According to Andee, she resorted to this measure in order to raise the shelter puppies’ chances of getting adopted by attendees of her wedding.
And so, the bridesmaids carried ten five-week-old puppies that were awaiting their death at a high-kill shelter.
“So my bridesmaids will be holding adoptable puppies with wooden flower collars. ‘Puppquets,’ I’m calling them,” the woman said in an interview with KDVR.
“We wanted to make sure we brought some awareness to shelter animals. We are so passionate about adopting versus shopping.”
Elaborating her unusual decision, the bride told Insider that she “used to work in a shelter” where she often had to let go of dogs because they didn’t get adopted.
“I used to work in a shelter and I’ve had the unfortunate job of saying to a dog, ‘You have to move on to the next shelter and I hope someone gets you. And I turn my mind off in case they don’t. It’s so near and dear to my heart,” she added.
As it happens, the ten puppies that were moved from a kill shelter to Nate’s Honor Animal Rescue were exactly the number they needed.
“They just so happened to have a dog who had given birth to 10 puppies, which is just the number we needed. It was very serendipitous,” Andee expressed.
Fortunately, the bride’s efforts were not in vain. Not only did she and her partner Tina adopt one of the puppies but two other guests also confirmed they will be adopting as soon as the puppies reach 8 weeks old.
“What I was hoping to achieve was to show how many cute animals are waiting in shelters and waiting for someone to save them. You shouldn’t be buying puppies when there are so many waiting for homes,” Andee concluded.
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Replaced!