A bride had the ‘slowest walk down the aisle in history’ as she made her pet tortoise the ring bearer at her wedding.
Vets Ericka and Jay Johnson first met while doing a wild tortoise survey 20 years ago, so felt it was only right for their beloved Sulcata tortoise, Tom Shelleck, to be part of their wedding celebrations.
The 41-year-old said that strawberries were dotted down the aisle for ‘always hungry’ Tom to follow before the pair tied the knot last year at Tohono Chul Botanical Gardens in Arizona.
The mom-of-one said that everything ran smoothly and he even became the ‘center of attention’ on her big day.
Photos captured show the 20-year-old reptile creeping down the aisle following a trail of fruit while bearing rings on a floral basket attached to his shell.
Ericka said, “The only thing we were worried about was if ladies had painted toenails and he’d look at them and think they were fruit and maybe get off track and bite some toes, but fortunately that didn’t happen.
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“I was proud of how he did. I think he did great and we’re really happy with how everything went.
“The day after the wedding I had several people text me like ‘Hey, do you have any pictures of Tom?'”
Ericka said it took around three minutes for Tom to get down the aisle—while it took everyone else a matter of seconds.
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Still, getting him in the right direction was easy.
“He eats mostly hay and dry things like that because he’s a desert-adapted species, so he’s not supposed to eat a lot of fruit but since he loves strawberries so much we knew it was a surefire way to get him to go down the aisle.”
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What a wild wedding thought!!! This is awesome!