The Northampton County Seeing Eye Dog club recently held a practice wedding service at the Lafayette Hill Presbyterian Church in Easton. Two human member couples who are engaged exchanged mock vows. The practice was designed to help the service dogs in training, who served as wedding attendants and guests, to become familiar with the setting. The dogs, their handlers, and both brides and grooms are Seeing Eye club members, so the practice was important for the dogs, who will participate in the couples’ real weddings, that will take place later in the year.

The dogs and their handlers were asked to arrive 30 minutes before the ceremony. This gave the dogs time to play and be comfortable with each other before the ceremony. When the ceremony concluded, the audience was asked to wave sticks with ribbons attached, as an added distraction for the dogs. At the small reception, held adjacent to the ceremony area, handlers were instructed to place their dogs beneath the table, facing out. This prevents altercations beneath the tables.

Each couple had canine attendants. Bailey, a young yellow lab was the dog of honor, and Larry, and older yellow lab was the best dog for Matt Reginski and Nicole Reginski Burchett.

Larry was the oldest dog at the ceremony. Bride Nicole’s family raised him as a puppy. He was sent to serve a family, and when he retired from service, Nicole’s family adopted him. Bailey is being raised by Bethlehem crossing guard Sue Schmidli and her sister Alice. During the school year, Sue often brought Bailey with her when she crossed students at North and Linden Streets, to the delight of the schoolchildren she serves.

Tressa, a German Shepherd being raised by Ada Gahman, was the Dog of Honor, and Eclair, a chocolate lab puppy, was the Best Dog for Abby Cooke and Alex Samsel.

There were also human attendants for the couples. Calista Ayre was the flower girl. She was instructed to throw her flower petals exuberantly, as an added distraction for the dogs. Bridesmaids were Aislynn Ayre, Ellyn Wong and Aimei Wong. Ushers were Bennett Ayre and Steve Hubinsky.

The service was officiated by Bob Bilheimer. He was careful to mention he was not an ordained minister, and the service was not binding. Still, there was an air of quiet joy, and excitement among the wedding party and the couples’ parents and other family members.

The church donated use of their space, in exchange for a future visit from the Seeing Eye pups to the chuch’s preschool.

Gina Antiga organized the service and the post service luncheon. She estimates she put in about 50 volunteer hours, and enjoyed every minute of it. Sam Cipolloni, Emily Sigler and Sharon Post, who are also “puppy raisers,” arranged the menu and made the food for the day. Throughout the event, Gina worked to keep things organized and moving along. She said, “However, we all work together on our events and each person pitches in however they can. We always say ‘it takes a village!’ Same applies to raising our puppies.

“Although a puppy may reside at one residence with a family, we use events like this to bring everyone together and provide a unique experience for basic training, manners, socialization and distractions needed during the process of preparing our pups for their future jobs as Seeing Eye Dogs.”