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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
After the wedding the couple jet set off for their honeymoon!
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
This styled shoot is incredible! I grew up with a flight attendant mother and have always been fascinated with the 50’s/60’s era so naturally I love all things Pan Am! I adore how they made the place settings look like a fancy airplane meal-tray! Kudos to Charmed Events on all the details!
Thanks Jen for the great feature and @jen Bergmark, thanks for noticing the meal tray detail =)
I love the show Pan Am, and I am absolutely obsessed with this wedding! Great details!
Such a unique wedding. Great wedding theme. Congratulations for setting such an interesting wedding.
These unique idea get guests more excited for the celebration..and these fun ideas help for a fun celebration..
I totally thought this was a real wedding! So amazingly cute and creative!
such a cute idea!! and great details. i am in love with all of these photos!
Another great aviation theme. The pan am colors look really fresh and original. Nice photography too.