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The Ryan's trade wedding gifts for animal rescue donations

On April 7, 2017, I married to love of my life, Logan Ryan, on the breathtaking island of St. Lucia. The day was picture perfect, more than we ever imagined. There was only one thing missing from our special day, our dogs, Nala and Leonardo.

Though the travel was too much to expect of our own pups, we did share a special moment with a stray dog in St. Lucia. The story goes like this..

The day following our wedding, we decided to take additional photos in the town of Soufriere. As we walked the streets, we noticed stray dogs everywhere we looked. The locals assured us that this was "normal" here, but it was still hard to accept for us. A little, tan, mixed-breed dog made her way toward us on the street. As she approached, I could tell Logan was nervous- my dress, my veil, my make up- what was I going to do? My instincts and love of animals took over and next thing I know, I'm bending down in my beautiful, white wedding dress to give this dog some love. Logan did the same and we then had a shadow for the rest of our photoshoot. She followed us around town, playing tug with my veil, walking by our side.. When it was time to go, we felt heartbroken. We got in the car to leave, but this sweet little dog had to stay living in the streets.

Naturally, we couldn't stop talking about what we could do. Our photographer put us in touch with Charlene Penney, founder of HelpAWS St. Lucia, one of the few rescue groups on the island. Charlene talked about the expenses of caring for the many dogs on the island with so little resources, so we decided a monetary donation would be most beneficial.

Though we had a very small wedding, our friends and family back home were constantly asking to

send us gifts. We asked them instead to donate that money to HelpAWS. I received a message a few weeks later- HelpAWS had searched the streets and found the adorable pup from our wedding photos. Our donation was used for her spay, as well as many other dogs and cats on the island.

They named this sweet girl Logan, after my husband, and she is now in foster care with HelpAWS and looking for her forever home in St. Lucia, the US, or Canada!

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