Is a cardboard stand-in fair game when my costume partner is late?

The host looked at my cardboard cut-out and said, 'Does Salt get his own vote?'

I was dressed as Pepper. My partner was supposed to be Salt, but he was delayed finishing an errand and texted that he'd arrive in about an hour. The party's best-pair costume judging was starting in ten minutes.

I drew a face on a spare white box, wrote SALT across it and carried it beside me. People laughed. The host offered to let me enter, though she hadn't yet asked the other pairs whether a cardboard teammate counted.

My partner replied to the photo, 'Wait for the actual Salt.' I couldn't tell whether he was joining the joke or genuinely asking me to hold off. He had made both our costumes, and we wanted a picture together. The prize is a bag of chocolates, so winning hardly matters.

Can I enter the joke version and take our proper photo later, or would I be replacing him in the part he had been looking forward to?