Come Fly With Us: Wedding Inspiration from Pan Am

pan am wedding inspiration

I just loved the wedding I shared this morning at the vintage airplane hangar and thought this fun wedding inspiration from PAN AM fit perfectly for today. It’ all about planes + traveling today! Frances of Charmed Events Group is totally in love with the ABC show PAN AM and thought it would be great inspiration for a wedding. In coming up with the design of this shoot, two things were really important to her for the design process:  it had to be an accurate depiction of the glory and era of PAN AM and it had to be a modern interpretation of PAN AM and not a vintage take on this period in time. They spent hours + hours researching and discovering the true history of PAN AM and if there was something that they liked, they made sure to keep it true to it’s original value as well as put a modern twist to it. Of course, there are many other details that they created to also put a modern stamp on this classic era. They used a color palette of sky blue, navy blue + yellow and some design motifs of stripes and hot air balloon to help bring out the feeling of a modern PAN AM.

They were also super fortunate to have done the shoot at the Oakland Aviation Museum where they have a plethora of vintage planes from every era, including one of the only two actual PAN AM planes that remain today! Not only where they able to shoot the plane, they were able to shoot inside the plane (as seen above) which was pretty special. Thanks so much to Frances and her talented team for sharing these ideas with us today!

come fly with us invites

airplane wedding invitations

airplane wedding invitations

groom with airplanes

pink and white bouquet


Ceremony
There was a fabulous vintage plane that we staged the ceremony and reception table in front of. We called it our “Amelia Earhart” plane of the day. For the Ceremony, we put down a striped yellow runner lined with yellow billy buttons and had a gorgeous display of flowers in the front. The focal point of the ceremony really was the vintage plane behind center front.

wedding ceremony airplane hanger

wedding ceremony airplane hanger

bride with groom pan am

pan am wedding


Welcome area
We wanted the welcome and escort area to be a fun and interactive station for guests. We built a wall mural with the signature hot air balloon PAN AM logo splashed across the wall that was actually used as the dividers for the plane between the different classes on board.  To make things fun, we asked guests to “record their love notes” for the couple instead of writing them down.  We also built a magazine rack that held the programs of the day so that the entire area would seem like a sitting area/lounge at the airport.  To help guests find their seats, we did a creative take using inspirations of PAN AM. For the gentlemen, they found their seats on the corresponding hankie with their name on it and for the ladies, we hand-made PAN AM hats that also had their name on it that they could keep and wear throughout the day if they so wished to do!  All of these items were also accented by the hot air balloon motif that indicated which table they were to be seated at, which were named after major airport codes.

pan am wedding

hankies for the guys

pan am wedding

wedding favors music


Reception
For the table design, we really wanted to have some fun with it and thought how great it would be for each place setting to be reminiscent of a first class dining tray, so that’s exactly what we did! Each guest has their own first class tray with a welcome lemon custard tart, their very own floral arrangement and a name card that is imprinted on plastic. We made custom menus that were similar to the actual style of an original PAN AM menu and also had vintage flying pins accented on the napkins.

wedding reception airplane hanger

wedding reception airplane hanger

pan am wedding table

pan am wedding table


Dessert Bar
For the Dessert Bar, we had a custom “Come Fly With us” Cake surrounded by lemon custard mini tarts and lemon and white cake pops.  We also had martinis with custom PAN AM stir sticks with an indicator on the bottom of each glass stem that described how that particular Martini was prepared.

come fly with us cake

come fly with us cake

wedding airplane hanger


After the wedding the couple jet set off for their honeymoon!

wedding airplane hanger


And you won’t want to miss this fun video from the day by  Viet Mac of (B.Lo.The.C.)!

Thanks so much to all these talented wedding artists who helped create this gorgeous inspiration for us today!

photography: Vivian Sachs Photography // venue name: Oakland Aviation Museum // videography: Viet Mac of (B.Lo.The.C.) // paper goods: Post Etiquette // cake: Jens Cakes // event design and planning: Charmed Events Group // floral design: Nicole Ha Designs // hair and make-up: Joli de Jackie // bride and bridesmaid dress: Bella Bridesmaid // wardrobe stylist: Adrea Cabrera // mini desserts: Creative Cake Bites // rentals: Hartmann Studios

Explore: