If You Danced to Any of These Songs at Your Wedding, You’re a 1970s Bride

Ask a couple what their first dance song was and you can usually place the wedding within a few years. Some songs give it away immediately. If yours is anywhere on this list, I know it was the 1970s, and I would bet good money there was at least one moment when the entire room spelled out four letters with their arms.

We pulled together 15 songs that owned 1970s wedding receptions, from the ballads couples swayed to through the disco that ended the night. Each one has its video below, so you can press play while you read. We also made you a Spotify playlist with the whole list (it’s at the end of the article), because this is not a decade you listen to one song at a time.

And if this puts you in a nostalgic mood, we also rounded up the 1970s wedding dresses that probably walked down the aisle to these exact songs. The bell sleeves alone are worth the click.

“We’ve Only Just Begun” by the Carpenters (1970)

I’m not the biggest Carpenters fan, but I can see why this song is a classic for weddings. It also comes with a piece of trivia for your next dinner party: the song that opened more 1970s receptions than any other started as a bank commercial. Paul Williams wrote it for a Crocker Bank ad that showed a young couple driving away from their wedding. Richard Carpenter caught the ad on TV, the Carpenters recorded the full version, and it climbed to No. 2 on the charts. Brides claimed it immediately, and it stayed the unofficial newlywed anthem for the rest of the decade.

“Colour My World” by Chicago (1970)

Truthfully, I had never heard this song before this list! But it’s a pretty great first dance song, and the early 1970s clearly agreed. If you slow danced ANYWHERE back then, at a wedding, a prom, or a school gym with streamers taped to the ceiling, you danced to this song. It runs barely three minutes, half of that is a flute solo, and it pulled every couple in the room onto the floor. Wedding bands kept it in rotation well into the 80s.

“Let’s Stay Together” by Al Green (1971)

I love Al Green, now and forever. I used to live in Memphis and went to his church once to hear him sing, and it’s still one of my favorite memories.

He released this in 1971 and it hit No. 1 the following February. The title alone reads like a wedding vow, so it took about five minutes for receptions to adopt it. If your wedding had a live band any time after 1972, this was on the set list, and the horn section earned its dinner.

“You Are the Sunshine of My Life” by Stevie Wonder (1973)

You can’t go wrong with Stevie Wonder at a wedding! He won a Grammy for this one, and it may be the happiest first dance song ever recorded. Couples who didn’t want to cry through their first dance picked this instead, and they got a dance floor full of people grinning at them for three minutes. Fifty years later it still works exactly that way.

“The Way We Were” by Barbra Streisand (1973)

My mom is the biggest Barbra Streisand fan! She and Neil Diamond will forever be at the top of her list, and therefore mine!

Yes, this is technically a breakup ballad from a movie about a doomed romance. Did that stop anyone in 1974? It did not. It was Billboard’s No. 1 song of the entire year, and thousands of couples swayed to it without thinking even once about the plot of the film. Barbra could sing a grocery list and make it romantic, and everyone knew it.

“Annie’s Song” by John Denver (1974)

This song is truly so sweet. John Denver wrote it for his wife Annie in about ten minutes on a ski lift in Aspen, and as far as we know, that remains the most romantic thing to ever happen on a ski lift. It went to No. 1 in the summer of 1974 and became the first dance for every couple who wanted something tender without a disco ball involved.

“December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)” by the Four Seasons (1975)

I think this song would fit into any modern reception playlist. Fun fact: it started as a song about the end of Prohibition, set in December of 1933. The band rewrote it as a hazy memory of a first love, moved the date, and landed a No. 1 hit that has been closing out receptions ever since. If you got married in 1976, your band played this. We don’t make the rules.

“Dancing Queen” by ABBA (1976)

Dancing Queen is still a classic! If you put this on, your parents and their friends (or maybe grandparents?) will love it. ABBA performed it on television for the first time in June 1976, at a gala held the night before the wedding of Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf, so the song made its big debut at wedding festivities before regular brides ever got their hands on it. It became ABBA’s only No. 1 hit in America, and it emptied every chair at every reception from 1977 on.

“Always and Forever” by Heatwave (1976)

Awww, I forgot about this song, and listening to it brought back a lot of childhood memories! This was the last dance of the late 1970s. It was written by Rod Temperton, a keyboard player from England who later wrote Thriller for Michael Jackson, and we’d argue this one has aged even better. When the lights dropped at the end of the night and everyone pulled their person in closer, this is what was playing.

“You Light Up My Life” by Debby Boone (1977)

I sort of want to karaoke this song now that I’ve heard it again! It sat at No. 1 for ten straight weeks in 1977, longer than any song before it. You could not escape it that year, least of all at weddings. And here is the part most couples didn’t know at the time: Debby Boone has said she was singing it about God. Thousands of brides chose it as their song anyway. We assume the sentiment transfers.

“Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton (1977)

It’s crazy to think this song came out in 1977! It’s still so great. Eric Clapton wrote it while waiting for Pattie Boyd to finish getting ready for a party. That means one of the most requested slow songs of the decade exists because a woman was running late, and we consider that a win. It moved straight into the first dance rotation the year it came out and has never left.

“Just the Way You Are” by Billy Joel (1977)

Watching the Billy Joel documentary made me appreciate this song even more. He wrote it for his first wife, and it won the Grammy for both Record of the Year and Song of the Year. A first dance song that promises you won’t try to change each other might be the most practical marriage advice ever set to a saxophone solo. And that saxophone solo deserved a Grammy of its own.

“How Deep Is Your Love” by the Bee Gees (1977)

The Bee Gees are so underrated by later generations! I think this song (and most of their catalogue) is so great. Saturday Night Fever landed in late 1977, and for the next three years every wedding reception absorbed at least four songs from that soundtrack. This was the slow one. Couples who spent all night doing the hustle got their breather here, three and a half minutes of falsetto and soft lighting before the tempo picked back up.

“Three Times a Lady” by the Commodores (1978)

Lionel Richie for your wedding?! How can you say no?! He wrote this after his father gave a toast at his parents’ 37th anniversary party, thanking his wife for the years she had given him. It became the Commodores’ first No. 1 and moved into weddings within the month. If your wedding video shows two people swaying with their eyes closed, this is almost certainly what’s playing underneath.

“Y.M.C.A.” by Village People (1978)

It’s crazy to think this song still brings people out on the dance floor, no matter their age! The arm-spelling dance did not even exist when it came out. It showed up in January 1979, when the studio audience on American Bandstand started spelling along during the chorus and the Village People rolled with it. By that summer it owned every reception in America, and it has not left a dance floor alone since.

Press Play on the Whole Decade

Here are all 15 in one playlist, in order from the Carpenters through the Village People. Put it on while you cook and see how many verses you still know.

What was your first dance song? Tell us in the comments. Our 25 favorite 1980s wedding reception songs pick up right where this list leaves off, and if you are planning your own reception now, here is how we would build the playlist.

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