Low Budge "Under the Sea" Dance?

August 4, 2008 8:31 AM

Planning an oldies dance for my parents' wedding anniversary. Advice?

Hey AskMeFi - my sisters and I are planning a dinner for my parents' 40th wedding anniversary. I want to up the ante and incorporate an oldies dance into the celebration. Think "Under the Sea" in Back to the Future. Questions:
- despite the theme, is this just classic wedding-planning territory?
- aside from finding a good dj, can you think of any nice touches that would make it more fun + authentic?
- if we fore-go the DJ and I just make a playlist, do you know some definitive late-60s music lists?

Any general regular dinner + dancing organizing advice is welcome as well. Thanks for your help!

posted by cgs to Grab Bag (4 answers total)

Browsing Wikipedia's Hot 100 lists here for the 60s might be a good place to start for assembling some of the music if you forego the DJ.
posted by ktrey at 9:11 AM on August 4, 2008

discreetly ask your parents about their favorite songs, or find out if any songs have special meaning for them. i dj a lot, and when it comes to music selection, one needs to really listen to the party goers and what turns their crank. another method if you don't want to be direct is to flip through their album collection for ideas or maybe ask their good friends.
posted by kuppajava at 10:07 AM on August 4, 2008

We did this for my parent's 50th anniversary last month and went the iPod playlist route, although he burned stuff to CD to work with the sound system at the rental hall. My brother, who was in charge of music, borrowed heavily from the kind of list that ktrey mentioned. We just Googled for stuff like "1958 hits" and there were a bunch of lists out there. The rest of us helped brainstorm for songs that we knew they liked, such as stuff they would sing along to on the radio. If you know or can find out their wedding song, include that.

My brother did several playlists, like slower stuff for eating and faster stuff for dancing, so he could switch between them when appropriate.
posted by cabingirl at 10:19 AM on August 4, 2008

There are a pile of History of Rock box sets out there. Throw the first 4-5 discs in a playlist, hit shuffle, boogie down.
posted by stenseng at 1:37 PM on August 4, 2008