As anyone who knows me is aware, my chihuahua, Princess, is *very* spoiled (she’s not called Princess for no reason!) and tends to inspire everyone in my family to — quite literally — do the most. When her 15th birthday was approaching this October, we knew we couldn’t just let the momentous occasion pass without the proper fanfare and celebration, so we began planning the event of the century: a doggy quinceañera.
Via Giphy
Now, we ran into a few roadblocks right off the bat, with the largest one being that she is very decidedly not a fan of people, making party guests a challenge. She also tends to bark at literally everything, which took leaving the house for any considerable length of time nearly impossible. Lastly — and arguably most tragically — she is *not* a fan of doggy clothes of any kind, dashing our dreams of a flashy ballgown before we’d even really begun planning.
Not to be deterred, we still came up with possibly the most extra thing I’ve ever done.
The Decor
In general, the more complicated you try to make things involving animals, the more horribly they backfire. Keeping this in mind, we chose to keep it simple and decorate the space with the smaller version of the classic number balloons.
If we were having guests of any kind, we probably would have gone a little bit harder with the decorations, but Party City was woefully low on quince-themed decor and she may or may not strongly dislike large balloons, so we took what we could get.
Via Chloe Fischer
The Main Course
Refined sugar is not necessarily the cornerstone of a healthy doggy-diet, so we prepared a more traditional beef cake to serve her as the entre. It might not have the star power of her human-friendly cake, but a small hamburger patty and cheese made her just as happy at the end of the night — this was easily Princess’ favorite part of the whole event.
Via Chloe Fischer
The Cake
What’s a party without a cake? (Hint: *very* sad) We got our inspo from this post on Instagram and were impressed by both the simplicity and effectiveness of the design. I’m far from Cake Boss, so we crossed our fingers, hoped for the best, and tried to keep it as simple as possible.
Surprisingly, the hardest part about this cake is knowing when to stop. It’s easy to get overconfident and want to get fancy with your shading and keep adding details. Do. Not. Do. This. You’ve come too far to mess up and have to scrap it now.
Via Chloe FIscher
The Dress Code
As is appropriate, we chose to pay homage to the guest of honor and don chihuahua themed shirts — although our initial instinct was for a formal, black tie affair. In order to find the perfect shirt, I took to amazon and spent far too long agonizing over what was too subtle and what was so austentatious that I would have wasted $20 and never be able to wear it again. I picked this one for the retro design and relative subtlety of the ~aesthetic.~
Obviously, the dress is essential to the quince, we couldn’t throw her into just anything! It needed glitz, it needed glam, it needed ruffles and it needed to turn heads. However, this is where my mom came in to reel us all back in. Tragically, Princess is far from fond of dresses or clothes of any kind, so we had to manage our expectations and keep things as simple as possible.
Unfortunately, I wouldn’t even begin to know where to find the exact dress she wore, Amazon and any other pet retailer will have plenty of options that the special pup in your life will likely want you to take off as soon as possible.
Via Chloe Fischer
I’m now convinced that the ultimate form of self-care is throwing a birthday party for your dog, so make sure to stay tuned for her sweet 16 next year!
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