What date did the first wedding in an airplane take place?

Answer 1

The first wedding in an airplane took place in 1929, between Walter Wedell and Henrietta Filiberto. I am not sure of the exact date but I will try to find out. Walter Wedell and his brother, Jimmy Wedell, were very successful air racers, and co-founders of Wedell-Williams Airlines.

With due respect, there must be records to show that my grandparents, Robert Gerald "Bob" Horton, and Esther Elizabet Kalaneas(sp) Horton were married in a Standard Air Lines plane over Phoenix, AZ in 1927. This is family lore as related to me from the first persons, my folks and my grandmother. My grandpa Bob died the year I was born ('66), but my grandmother, Esther, continued to receive a bouquet of flowers on her wedding anniversary every year until she passed away in 1988. The flowers were from TWA.

Nana and Gaga, as we affectionately called them, were pioneer aviators from the earliest flights in the 1910's through the early '40's. The expertise that my grandpa brought to the field was in air-to-ground radio communications. He knew all the most famous aviators from Lindbergh to Hughes and, according to my family, installed the radio in Amelia Earhart's last airplane.

I loved to hear the stories my grandmother told us, and then to ask my dad, Bruce Robert Horton, to tell the same stories from his point of view -- as a young kid, born 1930, being dragged all over the country, from airfield to airfield, never getting settled into any school or community for very long before they were moving again.

I've watched the internet make claims about other folks first airborne marriages over the last 15 years or so, and I've always felt like my Nana was being unfairly ignored. She deserved recognition for her role in support of early American aviation. Can this record be corrected?

Thank you for your consideration,

Tom Horton

Vancouver, WA