The Dogs Who Came Into Our Lives During COVID | A Vancity Officiant Ceremony Story

There are certain patterns you only begin to notice after standing at enough weddings.

Over the past few years, I have met quite a few dogs who became part of their families around 2020, during COVID.

At the time, nobody was thinking about how those dogs might one day be part of a wedding ceremony. People were simply living through a very unusual period of life. Work moved home. Social circles became smaller. Everyday routines changed almost overnight.

For some people, the dog beside them became an especially constant presence during that time.

Years later, I am now meeting some of those dogs at weddings.

Bailey and Boris were two of them.

Bailey Was There First

Bailey had been with Justin since she was a puppy.

By the time Glady met Justin, Bailey was already four years old. She wasn't a dog they adopted together. She was already part of Justin's life, and over time, became part of the life Glady and Justin were building together too.

Then COVID happened.

During my ceremony planning call with Glady, she told me that when the pandemic required her to work from home, she suddenly spent much more of her day around Bailey.

And she began noticing something.

Bailey seemed a little bored.

It was a small observation, but one that eventually led to a much bigger change in their family. Glady and Justin had already been thinking about welcoming another dog, and in 2020, Boris came home.

Their family of three became four.

Something I've Noticed Since COVID

Glady and Justin's story made me think about something I have been noticing more often in my work as a wedding officiant.

COVID was an unusual period of isolation for many people. The places we went, the people we saw, and even the ways we marked time became much more limited.

And in the middle of that, many people brought animals into their homes.

Of course, every story was different. I would never assume that every dog adopted during those years played the same role.

But now, several years later, I am meeting some of them at wedding ceremonies.

That is the part that stays with me.

A dog who was there when someone was working alone from home is now walking down an aisle with them.

A dog who became part of a couple's daily routine during an unusually small and uncertain period of life is now standing in a room filled with their family and friends.

The world around them changed again.

The dog stayed.

Perhaps that is why, when couples ask us at Vancity Officiant about including their pets in a wedding ceremony, we don't immediately think about what the dog can do.

We first want to understand why they belong there.

A Pet-Friendly Wedding at Paradox Hotel Vancouver

Glady and Justin married on August 8, 2026, at Paradox Hotel Vancouver in the heart of Downtown Vancouver.

It's a venue I know well from officiating weddings there, and for this particular celebration, there was another detail that made it especially fitting: Paradox is a pet-friendly hotel.

The hotel officially welcomes pets at no additional cost, which makes it one of the Downtown Vancouver wedding venues where having dogs involved can feel much more naturally connected to the rest of the wedding day.

Paradox also offers several different wedding spaces, from the more intimate English Bay Room to its larger Grand Ballroom, along with foyers and a terrace overlooking West Georgia Street.

I had the privilege of officiating Glady and Justin's full Classic Celebration wedding ceremony as Vancity Officiant's Kit Chan, with around 160 guests, an eight-person wedding party, family and friends, and a ceremony primarily in English with Cantonese woven in for their families.

And among all those people were two Boston Terriers who very clearly belonged there too.

Bailey was 11.

Boris was five.

They weren't brought in for one isolated "dog moment."

They were part of the structure of the ceremony.

They Didn't Just Sit in the Audience

Boris entered with Justin at the beginning of the processional.

Later, when it was time for the rings, Bailey had her own job to do.

She delivered them.

And after Glady and Justin exchanged their vows and rings, both dogs returned for something different.

They became their Pawfect Witnesses.

This is one of the reasons we don't think there is one standard way to create a pet-inclusive wedding ceremony at Vancity Officiant. Sometimes a dog walks in with the couple. Sometimes they carry the rings. Sometimes their most meaningful role is simply being acknowledged.

For Bailey and Boris, it made sense for their presence to appear throughout the ceremony because that reflected the place they already held in Glady and Justin's life.

Two Mothers, Then Two Pawfect Witnesses

For the legal signing, Glady and Justin chose their mothers as their two official witnesses.

Once the legal documents had been signed, I introduced one final set of witnesses.

Bailey and Boris.

One at a time, they added their pawprints to Glady and Justin's Pawfect Witness Unity Certificate.

There is, of course, a difference between a legal witness and a Pawfect Witness. Bailey and Boris were not signing the legal marriage documents.

But that was never the point.

Their pawprints acknowledged something the legal paperwork could not show: these two animals had shared the home, routines and everyday life behind the marriage everyone had gathered to celebrate.

The certificate became a record of more than one day.

It held four members of a family.

What Caring for Animals Can Teach Us About Building a Life Together

One of the things I spoke about during Glady and Justin's ceremony was how quietly a shared life gets built.

It usually isn't one enormous decision.

It is hundreds of ordinary ones.

Who gets up when the dog needs something. Who notices when something has changed. How routines adjust. What happens when one member of the family gets older. What you are willing to rearrange because someone you love needs care.

Animals have a way of making those decisions visible.

Glady and Justin described Bailey and Boris as the centre of their lives and said they treat them like their own children. The dogs have brought love, joy and meaning into their everyday routine.

So when I designed their ceremony, I didn't treat Bailey and Boris as two dogs who happened to be attending a wedding.

They were part of the life Glady and Justin were standing there to acknowledge.

A Familiar Face Behind the Camera

There was another part of this wedding that made the day particularly special for me.

The photographs throughout this Ceremony Story were captured by Ariel Wong Photography, and this was one of those collaborations that had been waiting to happen for a while.

Ariel and I had connected before this wedding through some of the things we naturally have in common: a shared cultural background, an understanding of weddings that often move between languages and traditions, and, very importantly, a love for dogs.

Ariel is a dog person herself. Her dog, Oreo, even makes an appearance in the way she tells her own story as a photographer. She also describes herself as a "quiet observer", someone who grew up between Cantonese, Mandarin and English and learned to pay attention to the things people don't always say out loud. That way of seeing weddings has always resonated with me.

As an officiant, so much of my work is about noticing those same things before the ceremony even begins: family dynamics, cultural details, the relationships that matter to a couple, and sometimes the four-legged family members whose importance would be easy to underestimate if I only looked at the wedding day itself.

So after knowing Ariel for some time, it was genuinely nice to finally work together at Glady and Justin's wedding.

And perhaps it was especially fitting that our first wedding together was this one.

While I had the privilege of telling the story of how Bailey and Boris became part of Glady and Justin's family, Ariel was there documenting it: Boris walking in with Justin, Bailey delivering the rings, and two Boston Terriers eventually leaving their pawprints on the same celebration.

Two different roles, but both of us paying attention to the same family.

Photography throughout this Ceremony Story by Ariel Wong Photography.

Bailey Also Shaped Where Their Wedding Donation Went

There was one more part of their Pawfect Witness ceremony that mattered.

Glady and Justin chose to make their wedding donation to SAINTS Rescue.

Their reason was very personal.

Glady's family had experienced caring for senior dogs before, and Bailey herself was now getting older. They understood that senior animals can require more time, attention and care.

Their hope was simple: that other senior dogs could receive the same kind of love Bailey had received throughout her life.

SAINTS provides a safe haven for senior, palliative and special-needs animals, so the choice connected naturally with the experience Glady and Justin already carried with them.

I loved that connection because it allowed Bailey and Boris's place in the ceremony to extend beyond Bailey and Boris.

The dogs who already had a family helped another animal who might still be waiting for one.

Sometimes Their Place in the Wedding Began Years Earlier

It would be easy to look at this wedding and remember Boris walking down the aisle, Bailey bringing the rings, or two little pawprints appearing on a certificate.

Those were wonderful moments.

But they make more sense when you know what happened before them.

Bailey had already been beside Justin long before the wedding.

Glady came into her life.

COVID changed their everyday routine.

Working from home allowed Glady to notice Bailey differently.

Boris joined the family.

Six years passed.

And eventually, all four of them arrived at a wedding ceremony together.

That is something I have come to understand through Pawfect Witness™.

Including an animal in a wedding does not necessarily begin with asking:

What can our dog do during the ceremony?

Sometimes the better question is:

What has this dog already done simply by sharing our lives?

Because sometimes, the role a dog plays in a wedding only makes sense when you understand the role they played in all the years before it.

Bailey and Boris weren't added to Glady and Justin's wedding story.

They were already part of it.