A Guide to Wedding Vibes (Including How to Nail Yours)

Anyone who's got their ear to the ground in the wedding industry understands the effectiveness and necessity of wedding vibes. A wedding vibe goes beyond optical—it captures the mood and emotion of your day, the soul of your wedding. While wedding themes and styles provide overarching inspiration for the visuals of your wedding, a vibe goes deeper, identifying the bespoke energy that guests feel while experiencing every aspect—both visual and situational—of your celebration together. If you're still unclear on the meaning of "wedding vibes" or how to identify and describe your desired energy, tap us in. We're walking you through how to find a wedding vibe that's authentic and truly transcendent below.

In this article: What's a Wedding Vibe? | Words to Describe a Wedding | How a Wedding Vibe Quiz Can Help
Plus, how to share your wedding vibe with: Guests | Vendors

What's a Wedding Vibe?

Simply put, a wedding vibe is a way to describe how your wedding day feels and looks. Your wedding vibe is influenced by all of the little details you choose, from the setting and the time of day to the smells, decorations, types of wedding flowers, food, music, guest list, dress code and more. A wedding vibe's meaning: the palpable energetic quality of a wedding, the movement and texture of a moment, a look you can feel. Think of it as if you were inside the "movie" of your wedding, part of the emotions and experiences evoked by all the elements of your celebration, visual and otherwise.

If you think of the look and feel of your wedding as a funnel, the vibe would be the most specific category at the bottom, completing your fully rendered wedding vision. For example, two couples could be on the hunt for beach wedding ideas, but end up with two completely different weddings depending on what wedding vibe description they come up with. The first wedding could lean into a New England summer concept, then end up with an intimate, alfresco dinner party vibe. This celebration would perhaps use residential decor and a slew of candles to set the scene, with hushed conversation unfolding around a cozy table. The second wedding might embrace the austere beauty of the rugged California coast and then incorporate an ethereal minimalist vibe. It could come together with floaty white drapes that look like sea-foam, with light wood accents and a nature-inspired color palette. You imagine guests would hear crashing waves and feel an ocean breeze. When you're experimenting with different wedding day vibes, the most important piece of advice we can give you is to first think about how you want your wedding to feel, not just how you want it to look.

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Photos: Anastasia Strate Photography, Rachel Fosbenner Photography, Tamara Gruner Photography, Nikki Daskalakis,Design: Natalie Romine

Words to Describe a Wedding

Once you've felt out what your celebration looks and feels like in your head, you'll need the right wedding vibe words to crystallize your vision. What kind of wedding should you have, vibe-wise? Here's your answer: our ideal wedding vibe formula. It entails selecting two wedding adjectives and one place-based noun. Of course, you can always tack on any extra words to describe your wedding vibe if you need to get more specific, but the following three categories will likely be enough to cover your bases: visual (what your wedding looks like), sensual (what your wedding feels like) and situational (where your wedding could unfold).

Below, you'll see some helpful word banks of wedding characteristics—just play around with different combos until you find one that resonates. (P.S. As you assemble your wedding vision board and hunt around for other ways to personalize your wedding, don't forget to look for inspo outside of the internet. Art museums, trendy restaurants and bars, perfume and candle shops, and even your home can all give you clues into your wedding vibe and even spark some more adjectives to describe a wedding day that are not on these lists.)

Visual

These adjectives to describe a wedding deal with what you can see in your mind's eye, the physical aspects of your celebration. How does it look to you? What level of lighting and textures do you see?

• Silken
• Urban
• Sleek
• Opulent
• Coastal
• Candlelit
• Classic
• Shimmering
• Velvet
• Dark

Sensual

Each word on this list of adjectives for a wedding evokes an emotion. Consider how you want your guests and you and your partner to feel on the day. Is it a more extroverted or introverted feeling?

• Intimate
• Ethereal
• Cozy
• Moody
• Layered
• Frothy
• Sumptuous
• Buzzy
• Relaxed
• Nostalgic

Situational

When we say "situational," we don't mean that these places should describe your venue exactly. Rather, think about a setting that captures the energy you hope to convey.

• Dinner party
• Martini bar
• Enchanted forest
• Historic manor ball
• Retro motel
• Tropical heat
• English rose garden
• Italian countryside
• Rock club
• Grandma's house

How a Wedding Vibe Quiz Can Help Land Yours

If you can't feel out which words that describe a wedding suit you just yet, let us introduce you to a helpful tool. Enter: The Knot Style Quiz. This quiz is awesome for visual folks, because sometimes it feels more natural to select favorites from different groups of wedding images than letting your brain swim with wedding adjective words. You'll have the opportunity to choose your favorite photos in five different groups of images. After that, the algorithm will work its magic. Your results will include one overall word to describe your wedding, a quick overview of some wedding characteristics you should consider, a proposed wedding color palette (a boon if you're struggling with how to choose wedding colors), a few invites that suit your vibe and a slew of images that could inspire you. All of this data will definitely come in handy on your wedding vibe search.

Photos: Callaway Gable, Rachel Fosbenner Photography, Alexandria Monette Photography, Paige Vaughn Photo,Design: Natalie Romine

How to Share Your Wedding Vibe With Guests

Yes, of course guests will feel your thoughtfully curated wedding ceremony vibes the moment they step into your venue. And while you don't need to give attendees a complete rundown of your wedding vibe ahead of time, sharing a few helpful clues to whether you're more into classic wedding ideas or the latest Pinterest wedding trends can help set expectations (and get a little excitement going).

Your first line of defense to set the stage: selecting a stationery suite from The Knot Invitations and a (matching, if you'd like) The Knot wedding website design to convey your vibe through colors, fonts and decorative details. Though, these platforms can do more than just look pretty. Your wedding website can be a true portal into your wedding vision—simply create a wedding vibe Pinterest board and prominently link to it on your site's homepage. Alternatively, you could assemble Pinterest collages on guest attire vibes, hints of your unique wedding reception ideas or the overall energy, save the files and then upload them to a clearly marked "Vibes" tab on your wedding website. (Yes, you can make a custom tab and add an image wherever you see fit on your The Knot site.) Stationery-wise, you can compose a quick note for an insert card that explains the overall vibe (like, "come prepared to clink cocktails over candlelight on the coast" if you're hosting a dinner-party wedding) to tease what you have in store.

Photos: Brittney Raine Photography, Theel Productions, Daniel Kim Photography, Jaimee Morse,Design: Natalie Romine

How to Communicate Your Wedding Vibe to Vendors

When you tell your vendors that you've given some deep thought to your wedding vibe and have the exact keywords to describe it, you might just become their favorite couple ever. Having clarity on the tone of your event and identifying specific and accurate words to convey those characteristics will make it much easier for your wedding pros to be on the same page as you and your partner as you sift through memorable wedding ceremony ideas and other details. That said, use your three chosen keywords from the word bank section above as your North Star when communicating with vendors, filtering every decision you make through those terms. You can also create a wedding vibe Pinterest board or boards to send to your vendors to offer a visual interpretation and additional context. We suggest making one master board and using the "Organize" function to divide it into different sections, if you'd like to group flower images together, cake images together, etc. Approaching your pros armed with both verbal and visual inspiration for your wedding vibe will help them go beyond recommending simply, say, vintage wedding ideas, but instead cherrypick details from multiple types of weddings to curate a layered celebration that's totally bespoke.