Roxanne & Warren | Rustic-Meets-Chic Jewish Wedding at Nitida Wine Farm, Cape Town

This, my friends, is a dream wedding. A beautiful chic meets rustic love-fest set against one of the prettiest backdrops you’ll ever see (and it being my first ever South African wedding on STG, I am particularly excited!) There’s plenty of lovely DIY and it’s all wrapped up in one seriously amazing party. Plus it’s all captured by the *awesome*  Darren Bester.

Let’s hand over to our gorgeous and super-creative bride, Roxanne, to relay the story of her w-day.

VENUE
We had our wedding in Durbanville at Nitida Wine Farm in Cape Town. The weather is always beautiful in Cape Town in December and we really wanted an outdoor wedding. It was actually the only venue we looked at – we simply both fell in love with it and booked it immediately.

THEME
We are a laid-back couple so opted for a chilled out, relaxed vibe. We wanted our friends and family to have a good time and most of all we wanted a great big party! We went for a rustic feel using whites and browns and had amazing white fabric draped from the ceiling and fairy lights to give our very big wedding a more intimate feel. We had many candles lit to set the mood. We wanted to create a very relaxed, yet chic play on our rustic wedding.

INVITATION DESIGN
My brother designed our invitation which fitted in perfectly with our rustic theme. I then personalized each invite with brown wooden tags that had the guests names engraved on them. It was a nice touch to the invite and our guests loved them and now use them as key rings.

A CUSTOM DESIGNED DRESS
I got my dress from House of Silk and the designer of the gown was Natalia Trisolino. I was literally torn between two dresses, so I decided to have my dress made especially for me. I used the top of one dress I loved and the bottom of the other to make my perfect dress. It was a lace bodice with a sweetheart neckline and the bottom was layers of tulle which gave my dress more of a princess feel. To tie it all together I had a silk ribbon around my waste. It really was the perfect choice for me!

ALMOST NO JEWELLERY
I wore no jewellery, except for diamond stud ear rings that I borrowed. My dress had a sweatheart neck line and loved the simplicity of it without any jewellery around my neck.

SHOES
I loved my shoes. My maid of honour bought them for me. I wore a beige strappy Steve Madden  pair  with a sticker underneath that said ”I do”. My shoes were quite high because my husband, Warren, is very tall and I’m very short so we wanted to find that happy medium.

HAIR + MAKE-UP
My hair is naturally straight so I wanted a bit of a wave. I wanted something different to what I do every day so my hair was swept to the side with flowing waves. My hair was done by Lynn No. 1. I don’t wear a lot of make up so on my wedding day I still wanted to look like me. It was very natural, but beautiful and the look was created by Vanessa Kroeger.

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS
My bridesmaids looked absolutely beautiful – I had 6 bridesmaids and 1 maid of honour. The dresses had white lace bodices with a sweetheart neck line to match my dress. I added in some colour to our wedding with the flowing blue chiffon used on the bottom of the bridesmaids dresses. The bridesmaids all had long dresses except the maid of honour, who had a short dress as I wanted her to be a little different.

CEREMONY + CHUPPAH
My favourite part of the ceremony was when I gave Warren his ring and said “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine”. It was such an emotional moment for me and I was so excited to finally be married to Warren.

We didn’t actually choose any specific design for our chuppah – we simply used the chuppah poles from our shul and used our Rabbi’s tallit.

FLOWERS
I used roses and baby breath flowers for my wedding. I love white and I liked that I used two different white flowers. My favourite touch was two large silver buckets with bouquets of baby breath at the entrance to our white carpeted aisle.  For our centre pieces we used roses, baby breath and candles.

OUR FABULOUS PHOTOGRAPHER
Our photographer, Darren Bester, was absolutely amazing. He was so organised and directed our massive wedding party of 15 so well. There were no awkward moments and we felt very comfortable around him – he really captured every moment and I am amazed by our beautiful photos. He made us feel very special by giving us gifts to help prepare for the wedding. I really liked his personal touch that he added to his work and you can tell that he is very passionate about photography.

A CLASSIC WHITE WEDDING CAKE
We had such a simple cake. It was a two tier sponge cake with white icing and we used brown hessian to tie around the bottom of the cake. We also had a lovely cake topper engraved from wood that said Mr & Mrs Katzeff.

AN AWESOME DJ
We had an amazing DJ called Gabriel Shai  – he really brought the life to our party – WOW! We don’t have many Jewish friends and since I converted, the majority of my family is not Jewish, yet everyone was involved in the Israeli dancing and knew exactly what was going on. We had so many compliments from guests on how amazing the DJ was, and the awesome Jewish traditions that are involved. It was one big celebration!

PERSONALISED FAVOURS + OUR GUESTBOOK
We had white suede kippahs for the men with silver writing on them saying Wedding of Warren & Roxanne 15.12.13.  And for the ladies we had wooden fans with white ribbon tied to them that read Roxanne & Warren 15.12.13 I like to personalise gifts.

Our guest book was a A0 canvas with a picture of us from our engagement shoot where people wrote messages for us. It is now hanging in our home. It’s so special to see it everyday and to remind us of the amazing people that we shared our special day with.

ADVICE TO OTHER BRIDES
We had 165 guests at our wedding and I had stressed about where to seat everyone but at the end of the day it didn’t really matter because all we did was dance and party.  It’s not worth stressing about the minor details because you probably won’t even notice if anything is out of place and neither will your guests. Just have fun, and take in every moment in because it goes by so quickly.

ROXANNE + WARREN’S LITTLE WHITE BOOK
Photography —  Darren Bester
Venue —  Nitida Wine Farm, Cape Town
Bride’s dress —  Natalia Trisolino  at  House of Silk
Bride’s shoes —  Steve Madden
Hair —  Lynn No. 1
Make-up –  Vanessa Kroeger
DJ —  Gabriel Shai

What a brilliant idea of Roxanne’s to create her own custom wedding gown out of the two dress designs she was torn between. Such initiative! All the DIY, a gorgeous venue and a crazy melange of Jewish dancing make this South African W-day one helluva Smashing Wedding! Thank you Roxanne and Warren for sharing your special day with STG, and to Darren Bester for alerting me to this gorgeous love-fest!