Bride’s elderly dog carried down the aisle by her sister

[From Facebook]

Kelly O’Connell wanted the most important people - and animals - in her life to be at her wedding earlier this month. The veterinarian was especially thankful that her dog Charlie Bear, who had been recently diagnosed with a brain tumor, was able to attend.

But when Charlie Bear became too weak to make his way down the aisle, O’Connell’s sister and maid of honour, wouldn’t leave the beloved pet behind.

“People were telling me to just leave him because he obviously was like ‘Aunt Katie, I can’t.'” Katie Lloyd posted on Facebook. “That’s when I yelled 'I’m not leaving him!’ and picked him up and bolted. He is so big from all his steroid treatments.”

The maid of honour picked up the pooch and carried him down the aisle, while still keeping her bouquet intact and in hand.

O’Connell said the moment was as beautiful as it was heartbreaking.

“Both of us just dropped to our knees and started crying,” she told ABC News. “To see him be carried a few feet, it kind of solidified for me that it’s not the Charlie he liked to be.”

“He was a very sweet dog,” she said of the lab she found as an abandoned puppy when she was 19 and studying to be a vet in New York City. “He loved everybody, but I was definitely his person.”

Charlie Bear died on Sept. 9, just a week after the wedding, but O’Connell is happy he was able to see her onto the next chapter of her life, just as she did for him.