The aim of this paper concerns with the nonlinear analysis of cable-stayed bridges including the vibration effect of cable stays. Two models for the cable stay system are built up in the study. One is the OECS (one element cable system) model in which one single element per cable stay is used and the other is MECS (multi-elements cable system) model, where multi-elements per cable stay are used. A finite element computation procedure has been set up for the nonlinear analysis of such kind of structures. For shape finding of the cable-stayed bridge with MECS model, an efficient computation procedure is presented by using the two-loop iteration method (equilibrium iteration and shape iteration) with help of the catenary function method to discretize each single cable stay. After the convergent initial shape of the bridge is found, further analysis can then be performed. The structural behaviors of cable-stayed bridges influenced by the cable lateral motion will be examined here detailedly, such as the static deflection, the natural frequencies and modes, and the dynamic responses induced by seismic loading. The results show that the MECS model offers the real shape of cable stays in the initial shape, and all the natural frequencies and modes of the bridge including global modes and local modes. The global mode of the bridge consists of coupled girder, tower and cable stays motion and is a coupled mode, while the local mode exhibits only the motion of cable stays and is uncoupled with girder and tower. The OECS model can only offers global mode of tower and girder without any motion of cable stays, because each cable stay is represented by a single straight cable (or truss) element. In the nonlinear seismic analysis, only the MECS model can offer the lateral displacement response of cable stays and the axial force variation in cable stays. The responses of towers and girders of the bridge determined by both OECS- and MECS-models have no great difference.