Interview with Dani – Founder of Pawfect Love
Pawfect Love took a few years of iterating to find it’s true purpose in crafting keepsakes to honour cherished pets, with a particular passion for enabling pets to be included in weddings.
The business in it’s infancy (circa 2015) was mainly a creative hobby outlet that helped it’s founder, Dani Rathman deal with an emotionally draining role as a rural occupational therapist in the field of mental health.
After experimenting with a few different mediums in the early days, Dani found her true passion in polymer clay and more specifically sculpting pets from polymer clay. As Dani’s skills developed and acrylic paint detailing was added, the outcome of the pet creations became increasingly lifelike in nature and her signature style was born. Growth was organic and steady once the focus narrowed/ in on custom pet gifts and jewellery, then further into wedding accessories.
One of Dani’s favourite parts of business is hearing the stories of the beloved pets behind the creations and the reaction when they are gifted or received. Pets are such an important part of so many lives and being able to sculpt a cherished keepsake or memorial with her own hands is incredibly fulfilling. There’s also an immense sense of pride that comes with being able to design and craft the perfect way for pets to feature in wedding celebrations when they can’t actually attend.
Pets are such an important aspect of families and often are adopted by couples before adding human children into the mix or marrying. Therefore, it is only natural to want to have them included in some way on a wedding day.
This trend has also seen an explosion in the number of pet chaperone services for weddings and the quantity of pets (mainly dogs) attending or being part of weddings of their pawrents. This does make for some amazing Insta-worthy photos and cute Tik-Toks, but sadly isn’t an option for all pet-loving couples.
Pet chaperone services (most commonly used to help dogs attend or even be part of the wedding) are perfect when the main hurdle is transport and the logistics of who will tend to the pet’s needs on the day. But there are also a number of reasons you may look for an alternative way to honour a pet on the day, including
• The big one (they are no longer alive)
• The pet isn’t into crowds or strangers (even with the support of a chaperone)
• The venue isn’t pet-friendly
• The couple can’t decide which members of your large furfamily can attend and which you’ll need to leave out
• The type of animals aren’t catered to by pet chaperone services (you kept being ghosted when enquiring about your pet python attending)
• The cats won’t possibly be seen dead on a lead or in a cage
• Elopements or destination weddings in another state or country
• and the list goes on….
This is where Pawfect Love’s custom pet cufflinks, cake toppers or bouquet charms are all creative ways to honour pets on a wedding day.
Based in Adelaide, Pawfect Love is already well known within the Australian wedding industry as the go-to for custom pet accessories and is continuing to grow globally.
To see examples of Pawfect Love creations, you can visit pawfectlove.com.au or Instagram @pawfectlove.au.