Nuptials means a wedding ceremony or the celebrations surrounding a marriage. When two people get married, their nuptials include everything from the ceremony where they exchange vows to the reception afterward with cake and dancing.

The word has a formal, celebratory feel to it. You're more likely to see it in a fancy wedding invitation (“You are cordially invited to the nuptials of...”) than to hear kids talking about it on the playground. When a newspaper announces that “the nuptials took place at sunset,” they're describing the wedding itself.

You might also hear the phrase pre-nuptial, which means before the wedding.

While nuptials sounds grand and sophisticated, it simply means the same thing as a wedding. Whether someone has elaborate nuptials with hundreds of guests or simple nuptials with just close family, they're celebrating the same meaningful moment: two people choosing to build a life together.