15 Things Every 1980s Wedding Had (And We Miss Them All)

Matching bridesmaid dresses and hats, plus a hat for the bride! You would’ve thought most 80s weddings happened outside…or on a prairie. If you got married in the 1980s, I can tell you what happened at your reception without seeing a single photo. There was a receiving line at the door, a champagne fountain near the cake, and at some point everybody did the Chicken Dance (yes, your grandmother too). We already did the hair, the cakes, and the dresses, so this is everything ELSE.

One person who got married in the early eighties summed up the whole running order in four sentences: “We had church wedding and big reception with basic catered buffet. Grab a plate and help yourself. Did the cake cutting, bouquet toss, garter thing. I don’t remember a dance, but maybe it was subdued.” Subdued is not the word I would use for the rest of the decade, though. Another commenter set the scene for a bride whose mom didn’t get it:

“Weddings in the 1980s weren’t toned down affairs. They were over the top: formal dinners, heavily embellished dresses, big hair, huge cakes, elaborate floral designs, professional hair and makeup, and large wedding parties. […] It was the dawn of the videography era, so that was an added expense. People didn’t have the internet or Pinterest, so they made due with tv for inspiration. Think “Dynasty”, “Dallas”, and the royal weddings.”

— via Reddit.com

Count how many of these your wedding had. Ten or more? Go get the album out (and please send us the champagne fountain photo).

The Reception at the Fire Hall (or the VFW, or the Elks)

Wedding venues were much less of a “thing” back in the 80s. You got married at the church or temple, then had your wedding at the town reception hall. And it didn’t cost a fortune. Done and done. One bride kept it to a sentence: “1983 Married at the church, reception in the church basement. Nothing like today’s weddings which cost the down payment on a house.” Another described the small-town version: “Punch, mixed nuts, butter mints, finger sandwiches, cheese straws and a basic white wedding cake with a few flowers or icing rosettes.”

Was it fun? Ask anyone who was there. “Some of the most fun/memorable weddings I’ve been to have been backyard or fire hall weddings,” someone wrote, and a 1983 bride remembered hers as “catered food, streamer decorations and a boom box.” Near Pittsburgh there was a cookie table, too: “My out of town friends still rave about my PA wedding cookie table…Italian aunts baking for days!” And everywhere there were mints. (“I always loved the cream cheese mints at weddings.”)

A 1988 groom gave the full budget: “We rented a church for (I think) $250 and had the reception at the Elk’s Club (FIL was a member so the hall was free, as long as we ordered the food and drinks through them). We had a buffet, a case of cheap champagne, and a keg of Watney’s Red Barrel. The wedding dress was a hand-me-down, and the cake was homemade. I think we got it done for about $1500 all-in.”

The Unity Candle (Thank You, Luke and Laura)

Remember this one? You each held a taper, you lit one big pillar together, and the soloist sang. Luke and Laura did it on General Hospital in November 1981 in front of thirty million people, and that was that.

“oh wow yesssss unity candle was such a big thing wasn’t it??” one commenter wrote, and that is exactly how I feel about it. Another had strong opinions about step two: “Especially when you follow lighting the center candle by blowing out your own. We left ours lit. No. we did not ‘forget’ to blow them out. It was ON PURPOSE.” (We love her.)

Throwing Rice on the Church Steps

It was rice, not birdseed and definitely not bubbles, handed out in little paper cones and thrown right at your face. “Then you’d throw rice while the bride and groom went to their car, decorated with string, streamers and tin cans,” as one commenter put it. It’s one of the oldest wedding superstitions there is (rice meant fertility and a full pantry).

So what happened? Birds, or rather a rumor about birds. In 1985 a Connecticut state representative named Mae Schmidle filed a bill to ban uncooked rice at weddings, with a $50 fine, because she thought it swelled up in birds’ stomachs. Ann Landers repeated it in her column in 1988, a Cornell ornithologist wrote in to say rice has to be boiled before it expands, and she ran a correction. Too late! Every bride in America was already tying birdseed into tulle. One commenter’s mom was ahead of the curve: “When my mom got remarried in 1978, she took a bag of our parakeets bird seed and had people throw it instead of rice. She didn’t want rice because she’d heard it hurts the birds.”

The Receiving Line

You did not walk into an 80s reception without shaking eight hands first: bride, groom, both sets of parents, maid of honor, best man. “Punch, cake in church reception hall with full receiving line for guest entering hall,” is how one commenter remembers it, and I think that is the entire wedding in eleven words. A 1987 bride: “We got married in a church and the reception was at the fellowship hall. There was no dancing or DJ. But we did have a reception line where the guests all came past to wish us well. I haven’t seen one of those in eons”

“Is it just me or did weddings used to be easier? You knew what to expect. There was the ceremony, and then immediately afterwards was the reception. You got to the reception, there was a receiving line, you got to say hello, give your respects, get a drink, and then a meal was immediately served. After that there was dancing, drinks, you could scoot out, etc.”

— via Reddit.com

I miss this one. Every guest got thirty seconds with you, and a lot of couples don’t manage that now. One groom skipped it and “let folks out of their pews at the end of the ceremony and greeted everyone that way,” and his friends copied him. If you want it back without losing your cocktail hour, our receiving line guide has the shortcuts.

The Head Table Up on a Riser

It was one long skirted table up on a riser, with the whole wedding party in a row facing the room. Nobody’s date sat with them, and nobody could sneak out to the bathroom.

It was such a given that forgetting it counted as a disaster. “At my Grandma’s wedding reception, they forgot to set up a table for my grandma and the people she wanted at the head table,” one commenter wrote. “Everybody with assigned seats were taken care of but not the bride and groom!!”

Bridesmaid Dresses With Shoes Dyed to Match

We covered the dresses in the 1980s wedding dress post. This is about the shoes, and the fact that every single bridesmaid matched. “In my day you were stuck with whatever lavender Scarlett O’Hella nightmare the bride chose, no arguments,” one commenter wrote, and another remembered that “My mother was married in ’84 and everything, EVERYTHING, was ivory, blush pink, or champagne. Would have killed for a splash of seafoam.” The shoes matched too. You bought white satin pumps at the mall, had them dyed the exact shade of the dress, and never wore them again. (A company called Dyeables owned this entire business.)

One groom still thinks it was the smart move: “We were able to get their shoes dyed in the dress color to match. We saved so much money, the bridesmaids were all able to use their dresses for something afterwards.” The groomsmen matched too. Someone described her parents’ wedding party like this: “The bridesmaids wore electric blue dresses and the grooms wore black pants, white shirt, electric blue tie and cummerbund and a WHITE JACKET.” (Her dad and the groomsmen “did ditch the mullets” the morning of.) If you’re tempted, matching wedding shoes to bridesmaid dresses is a lot easier now.

The pink groomsmen jackets were SO 80s. The flower girl matched the bridesmaids, the ring bearer matched the groomsmen, and the rings came down the aisle on a satin pillow with lace around the edge. That pillow is still in somebody’s hope chest.

The Champagne Fountain at the Reception

A three-tier gold plastic fountain recirculated the same bottle of Andre for four hours, and it was how a lot of kids had their first drink. A 1980 bride: “Sparkling wine in a fountain with dry ice. It was a hoot!” Somebody else was less supervised. “There was a champagne fountain that got all the children drunk,” one commenter admitted. “They took us home to bed and went out to party more. I was in charge, a drunk 12 year old.”

At the Italian weddings it was just the opening act: “Champagne Fountain. With trays of you name appetizers it (mushrooms,meatballs, crackers and cheese)going around. Then we started with Italian wedding soup. Then came the pasta course. Then trays of Roast Beef and gravy.” At the church-basement weddings the fountain’s cousin was the punch bowl, with “an ice ring in the punch bowl. Punch poured in a jello mold and frozen; fancy folks put fruit in it.” (We are Team Fruit in the Ice Ring.) You can skip the champagne entirely now, but champagne towers are back at a LOT of weddings, so the fountain is only half retired.

A Wedding Cake on Pillars With a Fountain Underneath

Wedding cakes in the 80s looked like elaborate doll houses. We did a whole post on 1980s wedding cakes, so I’ll just say the cake was cut with an engraved silver knife, you fed each other with your arms linked, and the whole room screamed for a smash.

My favorite quote in the whole pile came from a woman who has been married 36 years. “I told my now-husband that if he smashed cake in my face, I would immediately leave and have our marriage annulled. We e been married 36 years. And yes, there were people at the reception screaming for him to smash the cake in my face. He just looked at them and said ‘No.'” That is a man who listens! (For the other kind of groom, we collected the wedding cake smashes that did not end in annulment.)

Jordan Almond Favors and Personalized Matchbooks

Five sugared almonds sat in a circle of tulle on every napkin, tied with a ribbon in your colors. Five because, as one mom who did them at her own wedding and then her daughter’s explained, “Each guest gets 5 jordan almonds representing health, wealth, happiness, fertility, and a long life.” An 80s bride confirmed the pairing: “Personalized matchbooks were practically required, along with bags of almond candies in a net bag tied with the wedding colors, but as far as I remember everyone brought their own cigarettes.” And the kids remember the packaging more than the candy: “As a kid, it wasn’t just the almonds. It was the little mesh bag too.”

The matchbooks had your names in gold foil. “It’s weird now but like everyone was smoking so it was a very practical gift,” a commenter explained, and they were the one favor people kept: “My parents still have a few of theirs from their wedding in 81! I remember finding them when I was maybe 9 or 10 and being so mad at them for ever smoking.” Not everybody misses the almonds. “If I never see a net bag with Jordan almonds, I would not miss them,” one commenter wrote, and fair, because they could crack a molar (see the favors nobody wants).

The Dollar Dance

Late in the night the DJ announced it, and a line of uncles formed to pin a dollar on the bride. It’s a Polish and Italian thing (the apron dance) that was everywhere by the eighties. “The dollar dance. Men pin money to the bride in exchange for a dance or a kiss,” one person wrote, not fondly.

Other people are a little wistful. “I have pictures of my parents doing the money dance at their wedding (guests pinned money directly on their clothes, there were no collection baskets), and they’re my favorite pictures,” one commenter wrote. Another: “I always enjoyed watching my uncles spin the bride around with their dollar tail twirling around.” And this one: “Ahhh yes the dollar dance, almost forgotten about it. Last wedding we did Hamiltons instead of Washingtons, inflation.” And it hasn’t gone away everywhere: “The tradition of ‘Dollar dances with the bride’ is still going strong too. I attended a wedding last fall in TN where they did that. Their cookie table game was pretty strong too.”

The Garter Toss (the Whole Production)

This is still going on at weddings, but it definitely reached its peak in the 80s. The bride sat in a chair in the middle of the dance floor, the DJ played “The Stripper,” and the groom came out from under the dress with a lace garter in his teeth. I wrote “(Garter toss, anyone?)” years ago in a post about outdated traditions, and I stand by it.

“I’ll be honest, I haven’t seen a garter toss at a wedding in like 20 years,” one commenter wrote, and the replies backed her up (“Last wedding I was at with a garter toss was in 1988.”). One bride confessed that “the garter wasn’t actually an undergarment, it was a glorified scrunchie around her calf.” Another remembered the catch: “I caught the bouquet at a wedding in the late 90s where the guy who caught the garter then had to put it on me. Never met him before that day; never saw him again. Was weird.” It is on our list of traditions you can skip without guilt, with love for every 1986 groom who did it anyway.

The Chicken Dance and the Hokey Pokey

If you attended a wedding in the 80s, chances are you put your right foot in and your right foot out…a lot! The song is Swiss, from the 1950s, and it was called “Dance Little Bird” until a 1981 Oktoberfest in Tulsa needed a duck costume and could only find a chicken suit. By the middle of the decade every DJ and polka band in America played it, right after the Hokey Pokey and right before the conga line. (The Electric Slide didn’t hit weddings until the summer of 1989, so if your DJ played it, you were at the very end of the decade.)

“The Chicken Dance was always always at my family’s weddings and anniversaries (the major ones where we had reunions) and it was that and polkas that got ALL the family out and dancing. I have pics from my wedding of my mom and grandma swinging each other around the dance floor to the polka. I don’t care that it’s silly, I loved seeing my grandma’s generation out on the dance floor, for some of them for one last dance with the family.”

— via Reddit.com

That is the whole argument for it, and I’m not going to top it. The other side has a point too: “We got married over 30 years ago and threatened to withhold final payment to the DJ if he played the chicken dance or the electric slide for any reason.” One bride lost that fight: “We refused to do it but it’s such a family tradition that my mom paid me to allow it at the wedding. I’m not above bribery” And my favorite: “There are classy receptions, and there are receptions where you’ll hear the chicken dance.” Guess which one had more people on the floor. The rest of the playlist is in the songs every 1980s reception played.

OK, we’re not sure what this is (row, row, row your boat?), but if you 80s wedding guests know, please fill us in!

The VHS Wedding Video

Before 1983, filming a wedding meant a camera in one hand and a recorder over your shoulder on a strap. Then Sony’s Betamovie put the two together, JVC followed with the little VHS-C camcorder from Back to the Future, and by 1985 a full-size VHS camcorder was on somebody’s shoulder at every reception. Usually your uncle’s, and he zoomed in and out the entire time.

The tape was the ceremony, the church exit, and the reception, in order, with a star-shaped wipe between them and your names in yellow letters at the start. One commenter watched her parents’ tape for the first time recently: “professional videography back then was nothing like what it is today. […] It was one continuous video (no extra bells and whistles or extensive editing like they have today) – but it was amazing to watch. […] This was the first time I saw videos of my grandparents since they passed, and it was the first time I saw any video of my parents at that young of an age.” Another commenter watched hers and did the math: “My parents got married when they were 18&19 years old in the late 80s. When I saw their wedding video for the first time, I was older then my mom there and my first thought was ‘OMG how did grandma even allowed her to get married?!'” If your parents have one, get it digitized THIS YEAR. The tape is not going to last. (One mom’s plan: “Off to see if I can find my wedding video so I can torture my kids with it.”) (On the fence about your own? Read our take on hiring a wedding videographer first.)

The Soft-Focus Photo of the Bride in a Champagne Glass

via @chasingthe80s

Every 1980s album has one: the two of you glowing inside a giant brandy snifter with a red rose next to it, or the groom holding a champagne coupe with a tiny ghostly bride floating in the glass. It was a double exposure done right in the camera, and the photographer who could pull it off was worth every penny (I had thoughts about how photographers sell to you back in 2014). The same photographer had a star filter for the candle shots and a soft-focus filter (or a smear of Vaseline) for the portraits. The other version was the tiny bride standing in the groom’s open palm. Someone posted their parents’ 1980s photo of it and the comments filled up fast: “These kinds of pictures were very popular over there in the 80s,” and “I’m Dutch, my parents also married in the 80s and have this kind of picture from their wedding too. Reading through the comments, I guess it was kinda popular worldwide at that time!”

One of the defining moments of a young marriage was getting a Leathermark wedding album (“pictures almost mounted with a mat, and then a plastic sleeve to protect it,” as one commenter described her parents’). A lot of the “candids” were staged, too: “So maybe there’s a shot of everyone throwing rice at the church, but then everyone went back inside. My own parents had a fake get away pose in the back of a decorated car.”

The Getaway Car With Cans on the Bumper

Honestly, I kind of miss this one. If anything should be brought back from this list, it might be this. While you were inside doing the dollar dance, your cousins were out in the parking lot with string, a bag of tin cans, and shaving cream. “We used to have a flower making party where we made kleenex carnations,” one commenter remembered. “We attached them to couple’s and the wedding party’s cars (how did we attach them – tape??). Right after the ceremony we drove up and down the main street honking our horns in a parade.”

“I really miss the weddings where people decorated their cars with puff balls made from netting and drove around honking their horns after the wedding. As a kid, if you found a puff ball that had fallen off a car, you thought you were rich.”

— via Reddit.com

The white stretch limo took over by the late eighties. (We have ten wedding exits guests always remember if you want something in between.)

Which Ones Did Your Wedding Have?

Disposable cameras on the tables didn’t make the list because Kodak’s Fling didn’t come out until 1987. The 1988 groom from the Elk’s Club had them (“We provided a bunch of disposable cameras at the reception, and some of the photos from those were fantastic”), but most of you didn’t, so those belong to the nineties along with the bread maker and the twelve-place-setting china. Most of these have a modern replacement now (we lined them up in wedding traditions then vs. now), and a few, like the champagne tower and the pillar cake, are back on purpose.

So tell us. How many did your wedding have, and which one do you miss? If your mom still has the matchbooks, we would like to see them.

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