Wedding Aesthetic Ideas: How to Choose Your Wedding Vibe

Happy Magazine Monday! Here’s a how-to guide right from our glossy pages on how to create the most beautiful wedding of your dreams. Start with some wedding aesthetic ideas and get ready to bring your vision to life.

When you’re jumping into designing the wedding of your dreams, the best foundation is going to be choosing an aesthetic, color scheme, or theme that will make every design element that follows fall into place.

Are you going for Fairytale Romance, or Modern and Chic? What about Western Elegance versus Art Deco?

Every great wedding will lean into the details that make it magical. Whatever your wedding aesthetic ends up being, whether it’s based on colors or a theme, deciding this right now will help you make those design decisions later in your planning process.

Step One: Pick Your Priorities

Sit down with your fiancé and build a list of your top three priorities. You can do it together, or make a list separately and see where you both match up. These top three will help you decide where to organize your budget and make finding your theme much easier.

Priorities can be specific vendors like your wedding dress, photography, florals, catering, etc., or they can be something like peace and tranquility, never leaving your spouse’s side no matter what, or making sure your guests have a great time.

Step Two: Describe Your Day

With your fiancé, brainstorm a list of words or things you would like to emulate on your wedding day, and write them down together. Then circle your top five. Use adjectives, think of what is most important to you, or think of aspects of other weddings you’ve loved in the past. Anything goes!

Here are some example words to spark some ideas: elegant, timeless, peaceful, romantic, fun, rustic, summery, coastal, European, modern, western, industrial, fairytale, old money, garden, glittery.

Step Three: Choose your Colors

You can incorporate any color palette into any kind of wedding aesthetic beautifully, but knowing your colors up front will make choosing your aesthetic that much easier. Are you going for a black and white wedding to emulate timeless elegance, or do you love the look of French blue and champagne for a garden party?

Pick two to five colors for your wedding, and see how that ties in with your priorities from step one and your words from step two!

Oh, and don’t forget: silver or gold?

Now Put It All Together

If you could choose a theme for your wedding, what would it be? How can you incorporate details from your love story into the details? Maybe you’ll celebrate your Mexican heritage with a Dia de los Muertos color palette, marigolds, and an ofrenda behind the altar; call it Mexican Matrimony. Just to name a few wedding aesthetic ideas—nothing you do will be wrong, it’s your dream day, so any aesthetic is perfect!

Did you and your fiancé first meet on a beach? Celebrate with an oceanic backdrop, pearlescent and blue accents, and shells for decor; call it Coastal Elegance.

Take your ideal color palette, descriptive words, and priorities, and build your wedding aesthetic!

Blue and pink, with descriptive words like ‘romantic’ and ‘garden,’ and a priority on floral, becomes a Garden Party wedding.

Black and silver, combined with ‘whimsical’ and ‘alternative,’ and a black wedding dress, becomes Gothic Elegance. The options are endless, and nothing is off the table.

Now, you have a foundation for choosing every detail of your wedding day! Lean into it!

Check out this article in our 2026 Magazine here!