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A winged wedding crasher takes over a bride’s photoshoot

A winged wedding crasher takes over a bride’s photoshoot

Kayla Alexander, a bridesmaid, poses with Blue Ivy when the bird crashed the wedding photoshoot, Aug. 5, 2023. Photo: Clarksville Now/Arienne Yanes contributed


CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – Blue Ivy, a 10-year-old Lorikeet, made a daring escape on Aug. 2 from her home. Although nobody knows what Blue Ivy had been up to during the three days she was gone, her adventure came to a sudden end when she flew into a bride’s photoshoot during her wedding.

“I just kept the faith, and just prayed that somebody had her,” Blue Ivy’s owner, Shamona Sanders told Clarksville Now.

Kayla Alexander, a bridesmaid, poses with Blue Ivy when the bird crashed the wedding photoshoot, Aug. 5, 2023. (Arienne Yanes contributed)

The grand escape

Blue Ivy has been with Sanders for 10 years. Blue Ivy, according to Sanders, has a history of escaping, but generally never goes too far for too long. To give the mischievous Lorikeet some space to roam without escaping, Sanders had her deck enclosed and let Blue Ivy explore the room.

On Aug. 2, Sanders went to her deck and found her beloved bird to be missing.

“I thought she was deceased,” Sanders said. “I thought she would be in one of my plants, because I have plants all out there, and I couldn’t find her. But then, something told me to look in the corner of my deck…”

When she looked, she found two small holes burrowed into the screen of her deck. Sanders realized then; her beloved bird wasn’t dead but had escaped.

Wedding Crasher

Aug. 5, Arienne Yanes, a photographer, was taking pictures of a wedding party at Liberty Park when a small green bird came bouncing out of the bushes.

“The sister of the bride, she was one of the bridesmaids, came over and picked it up,” Yanes told Clarksville Now. “It began climbing up her dress and biting at her jewelry.”

Blue Ivy continued to follow the wedding party around for pictures until they went inside for the reception. Yanes called her husband to come and collect the bird since it seemed domesticated and friendly, but when he arrived, the bird was nowhere to be seen.

Five minutes after her husband left the venue, Yanes was eating near the glass doors of the venue when she heard a small knocking. When she looked outside, she saw that the small green bird had followed them after all and was politely requesting to come in. She quickly called her husband who returned promptly and collected the bird and took it home.

Reunited at last

On Aug. 15, Yanes was looking on a local Facebook group for information about the hostage situation on Wilma Rudolph, when she came across a post describing a missing exotic bird. She quickly recognized the bird as the one she had taken home from Liberty Park nearly two weeks prior.

Arienne Yanes took care of Blue Ivy when she found the bird in Liberty Park during a wedding on Aug. 5, 2023. (Arienne Yanes contributed)

Yanes contacted Sanders through the post and after a quick Facetime call, the lost bird was confirmed to be found at last.

“A lot of people wouldn’t have given her back,” Sanders told Clarksville Now. “I’m just grateful there are good and honest people in this world.”

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