Chic Candlelit Wedding With Navy, Gold & Marsala: Roxanne & Panayiotis

I’ve an incredibly chic wedding to share with you today, the colour scheme is a romantically moody combination of navy, gold, emerald and marsala – which is absolutely gorge!

Roxanne & Panayiotis married in such a beautiful setting too, their wedding venue is phenomenal  – the decor and furniture are out of this world…

I also adore Roxanne’s wedding gown, it a serious show-stopper. In fact, there are just so many perfectly pretty elements in this beautifully captured wedding that you just need to see them for yourself.

Words by Roxanne. Images by Yolandé Marx Photography.

Panayiotis and I love to travel – it’s what we spend all of our pennies on! We had visited Emily Moon a few years before, and had fallen in love with place.

The entire venue is a journey on its own, with beautifully curated crafts from Africa to Asia that took us back to our trips abroad.

Antiques, curios and all sorts of wonderment are displayed on the walls and pretty much any counter space. Every room felt like it had a story, it exuded romance.

My sister owns and runs an events company, The Wedding Event, in Johannesburg. I completed an events planning course and decided to assist her.

I felt quite confident in planning the wedding on my own. It was a little stressful and challenging, but incredible to be able to do it myself. I trusted my gut and it all worked out.

Emily Moon also had a venue coordinator who assisted with the logistics of the venue itself.

I’ve always loved Kobus Dippenaar’s work, there is nothing better than wearing something that makes you feel beautiful. Unfortunately his dresses were out of my budget, so I opted for his other range, Anna Georgina for Kobus Dippenaar.

I went to Calegra Bridal Boutique and tried on a few dresses, but nothing felt “wow” on me. The owner of the boutique, Susan, informed me that more dresses would be coming in within a few weeks. Once they’d arrived, I headed to the boutique, and fell in love with the first dress she showed me.

It had layers of lace, thin straps over the shoulder and a beautiful “V” at the back. It was so comfortable too! I felt like a princess.

Our florists were amazing – I popped in for a consultation with Michelle, who completely understood what I wanted. I had sent her my Pinterest board and explained the colours and various heights I wanted. They hit the nail on the head and made sure it was within my budget.

The first love of my life gave me away – My Father, Eldrid.

We walked down the aisle to the string quartet version of Tempertraps’ Sweet Disposition.

I happened to work in the same building as Panayiotis’ restaurant. After months of me swooning from a distance, he asked me to join him to dinner with some very dear friends from Sweden. He kind of captured my heart from that day on.

5 years later, he proposed to me on our kitchen floor. We’d spent the entire evening drinking champagne and laughing until our bellies hurt. He planned to propose a couple of days later, but was so caught up in the moment in the kitchen that he did it right then and there.

The groomsmen all wore slick black suits, it really looked lovely with the bridesmaids in navy.

I think navy blue is a very classic colour. I had seen the loveliest convertible bridesmaid dresses from Forever New, with beautiful chiffon fabric, enabling them to have a sweetheart neckline, one shoulder, halter and so on.

My biggest concern was that they felt comfortable and beautiful, I think we ticked those boxes!

With Panayiotis’ Greek heritage, I really wanted to add special elements to the wedding day. I made sure that there were plenty of evil eyes around, and that a lot of the menu comprised of Greek food. We also enjoyed traditional dancing by some of the Greek guests.

The venue itself is like a magical wonderland – there wasn’t a lot that we needed to add. It was everything I wanted, an interesting and intriguing place.

I love the dark and moody colours like marsala, navy, emerald. I tried to incorporate these elements in the décor and flowers. I feel like these colours really convey romance.

Emily Moon have the most exquisite lanterns which we lit up for the evening. There were hundreds of candles in the venue which made it seem so much more romantic.

The flowers were mostly shades of creams and dark reds, and these were paired with beautiful vases. This tied in well with the venue.

My brother made the wooden candles holders for each table, while my girlfriends helped me with DIY Eucalyptus swag for the tables.

The venue sits above a gorgeous river, so we did not want to take away from our natural surroundings by adding too much decor.

For the wedding party, I got the groomsmen beautiful copper hip flasks, brightly coloured socks and plenty of tissues!

For my bridesmaids, I presented each of them with a box on the morning of the wedding. Each contained a luxe white robe, vanilla candle, tissues, earrings and a pashmina.

My wonderful Mother-In-Law sourced traditional bounbonniere (favour in Greek), which consisted of an uneven number of candied almonds (even numbers are bad luck) in a little gift bag with an evil eye on the bag.

I sourced navy and gray pashminas for the ladies wedding favours and we had a box Cuban cigars for the gents. Each guest also received an evil eye bracelet.

I love cake – don’t get me wrong, but I’ve always felt as though it goes to waste, so decided to do the Dessert table myself, sourcing yummy fudge & cookies. My Maid of Honor’s mom made dark chocolate dipped strawberries, and I had a very dear friend, Lehanie Muller from LanieLief bake the most delicious vanilla macarons.

For the actual cake, I purchased two salted caramel nougat cakes from Roses Handmade Creations in Paarl and stacked them on one another. I laid out some gold paper packets and encouraged guests to take the goodies home for later!

Yolande Marx photographed our big day. From the moment I met her, I knew she was the one who would capture our moments

She arrived on the wedding day and put me at complete ease. I was a nervous wreck – I had lost my engagement ring a few days before and just wasnt feeling complete. She allowed me to feel so natural, no photographs felt staged.

I am so grateful for the photographs she took – Yolande captured candid moments. I look at the photos and I can still feel the moment from that night.

Purchasing the grooms suit was easier than expected! I took Panayiotis to the V&A Waterfront, he walked into the Hugo Boss store, tried on the first suit he laid eyes on and made the purchase right then and there.

With Panayiotis being a restaurateur, good food was really important to us. Emily Moon did the catering for the evening and several guests told me that it was some of the best food that they’d tasted at a wedding. We found that the Chef really listened to what we wanted.

We opted for a “family-style” starter which meant that each table shared a platter. I love how intimate it was, and with Panayiotis being Greek it was lovely to bring that sharing element in.

Our first dance was to Sade- By Your Side.

What was your most memorable moment of the day?

I had lost my engagement ring about 4 days before our wedding day. I was absolutely distraught, and had to settle for wearing an imitation ring instead. It wasn’t nearly as beautiful as my own, but it would have to do.

It was about 15:30 and I was due to walk down the aisle at 16:00. I had asked my Maid of Honour to keep everyone out of the room as Yolande was doing my portraits and I wanted to have a moment to myself. The next thing I knew, my Maid of Honour told me that there was someone who urgently needed to see me.

My Mother-in-law and Brother-in-law came dashing into the room with my real engagement ring, which they had found amongst some of Panayiotis’ things. Those were the second happiest tears of the day for me. And Yolande captured every moment of it!

If you could impart any words of wisdom to future brides planning their wedding day, what would they be?

Don’t sweat the small stuff, or the big stuff for that matter. It all works out. Nobody else knows what you have planned.

Forget about everything else – you are with your loved ones in the same place at the same time. You never know when that will happen again.

wedding credits / photographer: yolande marx / wedding venue: emily moon / brides dress & veil: anna georgina for kobus dippenaar / grooms suit: hugo boss / brides shoes: / bridesmaid dresses: forever new / hair & makeup: lisa brown / florist: paradiso flowers / wedding cake: roses handmade / catering: emily moon / entertainment: dj & lighting by brendan kinsey

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