A US woman is recovering from injuries suffered during her wedding reception after a friend allegedly set his dog on her, then punched her in the face and head.

The alleged attacker, Joel Nevarez, 31, attacked Mrs Brittany Cortez, 22, at her wedding reception in Denver, Colorado, last Sunday, reported AP.

The two were reportedly childhood friends and she thinks the attack was motivated by jealousy.

Friends and Nevarez’s family members said that he has become increasingly unstable and aggressive and that they live in terror.

He is now wanted for suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. The police think he may have fled to Mexico, where his mother lives.

The dog has been seized and is being held on a 10-day quarantine at the city’s animal shelter. Left party to get dog

Mrs Cortez and her new husband, MrJorge Cortez-Trinidad, had been in the midst of celebrating their wedding when Nevarez briefly left the reception and then returned with the pit bull.

“Sic her, sic her, Skylo” he allegedly shouted.

Said Mrs Cortez: “Joel stood there with the leash in hand laughing. Laughing that the dog was biting me.”

She said he let his dog, a pit bull mix, drag her around the street “like a rag doll”. The dog tore into her shoulders and back.

She added: “It felt like the dog tried to rip my arm off.”

Nevarez also punched her in the face and head with brass knuckles at the party, she said.

Instead of a honeymoon, Mrs Cortez got a trip to the hospital. She needed stitches on her shoulder and down her back.

“I didn’t deserve this on my wedding day,” a weeping Mrs Cortez told new station 7News last Thursday.

“How could (he) do this to me?”

Mrs Cortez stressed that she had even cared for Nevarez after he was released from a state mental hospital.

Given his troubled history, the bride admitted that she had invited Nevarez to the wedding only reluctantly.

“I invited him to the wedding because I was afraid if I didn’t, he would do something worse,” she said.

The police said the attack happened at about 1am as the newly-weds celebrated at a house in Denver.

They added that Mr Cortez-Trinidad and a wedding guest were also bitten during the attack.

Mrs Cortez believes Nevarez was jealous of her as she moved on with her new life.

“I deserve so much more on my wedding. ‘I did everything for you and in return, you have a dog attack me,’” she said, as if talking to Nevarez.

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