This Couple Met Above the Clouds, Literally!

Melissa Baran
September 19, 2017
Categories: Real Weddings, Traditional Elegance

I feel absolutely blessed to experience others’ love stories for a living. Love and (pretty details) for a living ain’t bad my friends. If you’re an avid SMP reader, you get to experience that love on the daily, too. Today’s story is ridiculously romantic. This adorable duo literally met above the clouds, on a jet of course! Once you’re done admiring Charlotte Jenks Lewis‘ imagery, read the Bride’s writeup to find out just exactly what these two chatted about on that first-meeting flight and how it inspired their wedding day.

From the Bride… Jacob and I met in truly the most serendipitous of ways: on an airplane from Florida to New York! It was January 8, 2011; I was on the way home from a Disney trip with friends and Jacob was coming home from a business trip. While I maintain Jacob was totally unhelpful as I struggled to put my bag in the overhead bin, he has a very different memory of the entire encounter! Either way, once he pulled out an obscure book written by a historian I love, we started talking. Two hours flew by, and the rest was history!

As two history nerds, when Jacob and I got engaged we knew we wanted to create an elegant museum wedding with a classic New York City feel that also incorporated organic elements through the use of outdoor space. With that in mind, our design inspiration quickly became Elegant, Organic, and Modern. After looking at a few historic New York venues, we saw the Museum of the City of New York. A classic Georgian mansion with a striking marble staircase that served as my aisle and a beautiful brick-inlaid terrace overlooking Fifth Avenue and scenic Central Park, we knew we had found the perfect venue. Aiming to play up the museum’s dramatic design elements rather than trying to overpower them, our color palette featured marble, ivory, pale grey, and blush rose for the ceremony, while the rest of the evening featured mauve, plum, green, and gold.

Coming down the marble staircase and seeing Jacob grinning up at me and the smiling faces of 185 of our closest friends and family is a moment I’ll never forget. With the museum’s light installation glittering above me as I rounded the spiral staircase, I remember thinking that this moment was uniquely wonderful and just right. And from there, the night only got more incredible; we kept one of the museum’s exhibits open for our guests to explore, the food was delicious, and our amazing band kept everyone on the dance floor all night long. At the end of the night, we gave our guests airplane-shaped bottle openers as favors, with tags on them reading, “From Delta 1296 to 5.20.2017…” as an homage to our unlikely meeting story.

Our wedding was the absolute most fun, exciting, and special day of our lives, and we feel so lucky to have been able to celebrate our love with the people most important to us. So, my one piece of advice for brides on their big day? Do your best to stay truly mindful and in-the-moment for each part of the day. Remember that everything will inevitably fall into place, and as for the things that don’t, no one will be the wiser, so dance the night away with people you love and have the BEST time!