We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Bailey Dowell Joshua Shockley. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Bailey Dowell below.
Bailey Dowell, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
In 2021, while doing a bridal hair trial, a bride to be told Bailey of the need for this service for her wedding. She said “if I don’t start this business in the next year, please tell someone to take the idea because we NEED it!” I came home and joking told Joshua he should quit his job and we should start this pet business, not knowing this was in fact a service that existed and was a proven success else where! We never did anything with it, just joked about the possibilities from time to time.
Fast forward to 2023 when we see a Shark Tank episode highlighting FairyTail Pet Care- operating a business almost identical to the concept the past bride in our market was looking for, and we had been joking about trying to start! They ended up getting a deal with Barbara Corcoran, and we took a chance on applying to be a franchisee.
In 2024 we became the FIRST franchisee, post Shark Tank, to open a location! Being backed by 9 years of operating experience + training and insurance, it felt like a no brainer to invest and bring the concept to the St. Louis Metro market after ‘joking’ about it for so long! And we are SO happy to be here!
Once we hit the market we heard from several other wedding vendors that we are definitely needed in this community and have had many recommend clients to us!
The Companies Mission also really connected with us – donating time and % of sales to local shelters to help with food, medical needs, socialization & pets finding their forever homes!
Bailey Dowell, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Of course!
We’re Bailey & Joshua – we cannot wait to be your dog’s plus one to your wedding day!
We live Downtown St. Louis (from The Lou, and we’re proud!) and are so excited to bring FairyTail Pet Care’s wedding services and pet rescue mission to the St. Louis area!
FairyTail Pet Care helps include your most precious babies (with fur, wings, or scales) in your wedding day! Our services include round trip transportation for your animal(s), coordination and timeline planning with your vendors, pet first aid and CPR certified handlers, formal wear, and after care!
The Basics about us:
-Cat Parents to 6 (indoor) City Cats
-Fish Parents to 2 ponds & 3 Tanks
-Fun Aunt & Uncle to many friends/family cats & puppies
-Walk Shelter Pups often for more puppy time :)
More About Us:
We’ve both left behind more traditional career paths to pursue passion driven lifestyles- in beauty, local property investments, and now… pets! After years of Business Administration, Bailey decided to follow her love of beauty by becoming a Bridal Hair Specialist in the St. Louis Area, working with over 250 bridal parties thus far. And Joshua, being a Marine Veteran who grew up in St. Louis, follows his passion for serving the community through local property investments and events with our local pet shelters.
The Business + The Mission is the perfect marriage of our love for the local wedding industry and pet rescues! When we aren’t busy taking animals(of any sort!) to weddings you can find us enjoying all that STL has to offer or traveling the world visiting animals everywhere we go!
How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?
Currently the best way to keep in touch with our ideal clients is posting on social media. Between sharing our local shelter events/animals available for adoption & our wedding day pet content we can easily give the full picture on how booking with us not only helps complete your Wedding Day but helps less fortunate animals as well!
We also use marketing emails to connect with couples who have met with us in person at wedding planning events. We send reminders that we are available to take the stress out of including their pet babies in their wedding days and share with them other local vendors and venues that are pet friendly.
We also offer any specials or deals we may have going on to our email list before they go public!
What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?
Being new to the market/vendor space we’re still working on simply letting couples know we exist! The best way we’ve found to do that is through wedding planning events – wedding shows, venue open houses, vendor expos. We’ve found this to be the most direct route to couples who are planning their wedding days NOW & gives us a good opportunity to jump in and help! Our favorite reaction is “I’ve been LOOKING for something like this, we NEED you!” 🐾🩵 ( we agree 😉)
Wedding planning and vendor events have allowed us to foster amazing relationships with the St. Louis Wedding Vendor community who have been great resources for networking and connecting with even more clients!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Www.fairytailpetcare.com/st-louis
- Instagram: @fairytailpetcare_stl
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1ABJzfcYNw/?mibextid=wwXIfr
- Youtube: @FairyTailPetCare
Image Credits
Personal Photo: Alyssa Badami Photography
Limo Photo: Shauna & Jordan Photography
Back Shot with Logo Photo: AGold Photography (watermark on photo)
Other Photos: Lifelong Photography