St. Augustine - Dogs
Dogs at St. Augustine Weddings (and Everything Else)
We're a husband-and-wife photography team here in St. Augustine, and we have photographed a lot of dogs. Not only at weddings, either — they turn up at elopements, at engagement sessions downtown, at family sessions on Vilano Beach, and at one branding shoot where the dogs comfortably outnumbered the people. Nobody has ever had to leave one at home on our account.
Here's the useful part up front: bringing your dog is a logistics problem, and logistics problems have answers. Who holds the leash during the ceremony, who takes him home afterwards, where the water bowl lives — all solvable, and sorting that out is part of what we do. The one thing we can't answer for you is whether your venue says yes. That call is yours to make first, and policies vary from place to place.
The corgi ran the session
Engagement · Downtown St. Augustine
Jillian and Jason booked an engagement session downtown and brought their corgi, who promptly took it over. He led them up the brick street, sat down dead center on the pavement when he decided it was his turn, and looked into the lens more reliably than most people manage. Several of our favorite frames from that evening are just him.
Three dogs, one aisle
Wedding
Kirkland and Austin's dogs weren't guests, they were in the wedding. Three of them came down the palm-lined aisle, they wore flowers on their collars, and this one wore his to the indoor ceremony. They also made it onto the cocktail coasters — "Drinks on us!" — and turned up again in ceramic on top of the cake.
The version dogs like best
Elopement
Samantha and Matthew brought both of their dogs to their elopement at Washington Oaks Gardens, and honestly that is the format a dog likes best: no seating chart, no receiving line, just a walk under the moss with the leashes in hand. One of them trotted the whole path with his tongue out. The other one got carried.
What actually makes it work
- Ask your venue first, and get the answer in writing. Policies differ from place to place and they change — a yes you heard about from somebody else's wedding is not a yes for yours.
- Give the dog a person. Not you, you'll be busy. Someone whose only job that day is the leash, the water and the ride home.
- Plan the exit before the entrance. Most dogs are wonderful for an hour and then completely done. Leaving while everyone is still happy beats making them stay.
- Bring the boring things: water, a towel, treats, a spare leash, and something to clean up with. Sand and grass are not the same problem.
- Do the dog photos early. Before the ceremony or right after, while the light is good and nobody has been standing around yet.
- Tell us they're coming. If we know, we build the time into the timeline instead of stealing it from somewhere else.
Two dogs and a family of five
Family session · Vilano Beach
Jessica's family brought both dogs to Vilano Beach, which is two more bodies to keep pointed roughly the same direction and, predictably, the reason the best frame of the evening exists. Beach sessions are forgiving like that — nobody has to sit still, the dogs are allowed to move, and the dune grass at golden hour does most of the work for us.
And then there were five
Branding session
Not every dog session is a wedding. Kristen's branding shoot ran on five dogs, one cream sofa and a great deal of pink, and the frame everybody was waiting for was the one with all five of them in it at the same time. This is that frame.
The tuxedo
Elopement
Amanda and Max's dog turned up to their elopement in a black tuxedo with a white pocket square, which is more than can be said for some of the humans we photograph. Then he sat down and took the entire thing extremely seriously.
Butter got top billing
Engagement · Vilano Beach
This session is filed on our own site as Ashley and Craig and Butter, which tells you roughly where the dog ranked. He sat on the dry sand in his tan harness and supervised while the two of them waded out.
None of these days were harder because a dog was in them. Ask your venue, give the dog a person, tell us they're coming, and the rest is a leash and a little bit of timing. Then you get the photograph you actually wanted, with everybody in it.
Credit where it’s due
Vendors featured in this post
The team
- PlanningCoastal Celebrations
- FloralsThe Blue Tulip
- CakeCrème de la Cocoa