Looking to celebrate your inner Dolly or Kenny? Get ready to kick up your heels and have an all-out honky tonk hoedown with this extensive guide to throwing the ultimate 80s country bash. From perfectly themed venues and decorations to food, outfits, tunes, games and more—we’ve wrangled all the details you need for one unforgettable knee-slappin’ party your guests won’t want to mosey on home from. So grease up that pompadour, break out the fringed leather, and let’s rodeo!
Round Up a Rootin’ Tootin’ Venue
To really set the scene for your radical country shindig, the venue needs to fully embrace that downhome vibe. Some options for really assimilating guests into the 80s country atmosphere include:
Rent a Ranch
For true authenticity, hosting your bash at an actual ranch, farm or homestead will completely transport guests into the countryside. Sites like Airbnb offer rentals of gorgeous rural retreats, many with amenities like horses, hayrides, pools, and event halls ideal for parties.
Deck out the interior with gingham tablecloths, mason jar centerpieces, wildflower bouquets, and vintage country accents. Let guests wander outside to photobooth in front of picturesque red barns, pose with the horses, and watch the sunset over the countryside.
Backyard Barn Bash
For DIY realness, transform your own backyard into a country homestead. Rent a large tent or canopy and fill it with hay bales for seating. Scatter vintage lanterns around filled with candles or flowers.
Use old crates, wagons, and wheelbarrows planted with wildflowers as rustic decor. String up festoon lights for a romantic glow. Have guests arrive via a marked path through cornfields or sunflower fields for full effect.
Set up picnic tables and layer with checked tablecloths, mason jars filled with wildflowers, and retro country signs. Rent vintage props like washboards, bins of apples, milk cans and burlap sacks to embellish the look.
Community Center Shindig
For more affordable options, local community centers, granges, legion halls and recreation centers often have large halls perfect for hosting events. Outfit foldable banquet tables with plastic gingham and bandana table runners from party stores.
Use inexpensive burlap from fabric stores as tablecloths. Craft colorful banners and signs with country slogans like “Howdy Y’all!” out of oilcloth or vinyl tablecloths. Homemade touches like cutouts of cacti, cowboy boots, tractors, and bandanas make cheap but cute decorations.
Honky Tonk It Up
If you want to get your two-step on all night long, head to your local honky tonk, dive bar or piano lounge. Call ahead to reserve a section or area for your crew. Many places will even work with you ahead of time to select a special country inspired menu and drink deals for your party.
Provide cowboy hats, bandanas, fun photo booth props and koozies at the entrance for guests to get into the spirit. Ask the house DJ or band to spin classic country tunes all night to keep boots scootin’ across the dance floor. Line dance lessons add extra authentic flavor.
Rustle Up Some Invitations
Once you’ve secured the perfect venue, get your guests excited for some foot stompin’ fun with invites that really evoke that old country charm.
Digital Printable Invites
Design adorable printable invitations filled with 80s country flair using Canva, PicMonkey or Creative Market templates. Incorporate vintage postage stamps, floral borders, cow print, bandanas, cowboy boots, sunflowers, and tractors.
Include fun country phrased invites like “Howdy Pardner!” and “Come On Down to the Ho Down!” Email out to your guest list or print and mail for extra country love.
Canning Jar Cuteness
Craft adorable invites out of cardstock designed to look like a mason jar shape. Write the details on the jar in black marker for that DIY vibe. Wrap real mason jars with burlap or raffia and attach your jar invite along with enamelware spoon favors.
Wanted Poster
Have some fun with goofy custom wanted posters made for each guest. Search for a funny picture of the guest looking country, or photoshop their face into a western scene. Design a poster for it stating their name, promising a reward of a boot scootin’ good time if they show up to your hoedown.
Gussy Up with Glorious Country Decor
When it comes time to decorate your phenomenal country venue, think downhome charm meets vintage honky tonk vibes. Some ways to really dress it up include:
Checkered Everything
Inexpensive plastic checkered table runners are a party staple for a reason—they instantly evoke country kitchen vibes. Drape checkered or bandana plastic runners over all picnic and banquet tables. Use checkered flags and bandanas as inexpensive wall and ceiling streamers.
Set each place setting with a checkered napkin tied in twine or raffia. Checkered straws and swizzle sticks add to the fun. Scatter large checked fabric squares, tablecloths or gingham sheets as casual picnic blankets if serving food on the floor or ground.
Bales on Bales
No country gathering is complete without some good ol’ hay bales dotted around. Use them as rustic benches and seats, or stack in open areas as side tables. For seating, lay boards across them and top with pillows and blankets for comfort.
Get creative with your displays—stack bales in towers and decorate with flowers, or fill the center holes with wildflowers and lanterns. Just be conscious of any guests with allergies or asthma and consider a mix of hay bale seating and regular chairs.
Light It Up Bright
Create a romantic country mood with strands of twinkle lights everywhere. Drape them from ceilings, walls, tents, trees, and railings inside and out. Wrap them around railings lining stairs and porches. Outline food tables and the dance floor perimeter with twinkle light borders.
Use classic café string lights on back patios and trees outside. Inside, fill mason jars with twinkle lights, sand and flowers to place around the venue. Their warm, cozy glow says countryside romance.
Country Charm Accents
Dot your decor with charming country touches like vintage license plates, cowboy boots, binoculars, hats and shutters. Prop old washboards, crates, and buckets around food stations. Set up a “Wash Your Hands” station with an old metal basin, pitcher, and hand towels.
Make flower arrangements out of old rubber work boots spray painted white, filled with wildflowers or sunflowers. Hang old metal tractor seats on walls. Surround seating areas with mini hay bales and scatter corn husk dolls and mini cacti around as centerpieces.
Crank Up the Classic 80s Country Jams
You simply can’t hoedown without the perfect playlist of boot-stompin’ hits to keep the party going all night long. These playlists have enough 80s country heaven to keep you line dancin’ all night:
90s country more your thing? Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.
Dress the Part in Dapper Western Style
Half the fun is getting decked out in your very best western threads. Make sure to share these ideas to get your guests looking the part in glorious 80s country getups:
Country Gal Wear
Ladies can choose from tons of iconic country looks like:
- Fringed leather jackets, gloves, chaps and skirts in black, brown, or white
- Sexy cowgirl boots with embroidery, exotic skins, and stacked heels
- High-waisted and acid wash denim skirts, jackets and jeans
- Bandanas worn as neckerchiefs, headwraps, armbands, belts, and shirts
- Flouncy floral prairie dresses with ruffle shoulders and long skirts
- Those famous high-waisted and super short Daisy Duke jean shorts
- Colorful bolo ties worn on necklines, hats, belts, shoes—you name it!
- Big shiny belt buckles that spell out fun phrases or your first name
- A gorgeous wide-brimmed cowboy hat, floppy garden hat or baseball cap
- Don’t forget that 80s big hair and heavy eyeshadow
Cowboy Gear
Fellas can channel their inner Urban Cowboy with:
- A fringed and studded leather vest over a bare chest and jeans
- Cowboy boots with bold stitching and embroidery
- A sleeveless denim jacket with ripped off sleeves
- Vibrant snap-up Western-style shirts in satin, chambray or denim
- Bandanas worn loose around the neck or tied on head, arms or belt loops
- Large statement bolo ties with chunky turquoise, silver or gold details
- A classic felt cowboy hat Stetson, Gambler style or straw version
- Hilariously oversized golden or silver cowboy belt buckles
- Patchwork or acid wash overalls with one shoulder flap undone
Grub and Guzzle Downhome Eats & Sips
Once you’ve worked up an appetite from all that line dancin’, fuel back up with plenty of stick-to-your ribs country cooking and thirst-quenching drinks.
Vittles That’ll Hit the Spot
One you’ve worked up an appetite from all that line dancin’, fuel back up with plenty of stick-to-your ribs country cooking and thirst-quenching drinks.
- BBQ – Smoky BBQ ribs, pulled pork, grilled chicken, sausages. Serve with all the fixins’.
- Burgers & hot dogs – Grill up piles of juicy burgers and dogs. Add chili, bacon, pimento cheese and other hearty toppings.
- Potluck dishes – Have guests bring their favorite potluck and picnic eats like potato salad, coleslaw, baked beans, mac and cheese.
- Chili cook-off – Host a chili cook-off competition and have guests vote on the best pot of chili. Hand out fun prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place.
- Country breakfast – Hot, fluffy biscuits, sausage gravy, thick-cut bacon, eggs, hash browns, pancakes, fruit ambrosia salad.
- Pie – No country meal is complete without pie! Bake up apple, cherry, pecan, banana cream, chocolate, lemon meringue.
- Cobblers & crisps – Easy to serve cobblers and crisps like peach, blackberry, strawberry rhubarb.
- Cornbread, biscuits & muffins – Cornbread muffins, fluffy biscuits, cornbread sticks, corn fritters.
- Vege/vegan options – For non-meat eaters have veggie burgers/dogs, chilled tofu “chicken” salad, grilled veg kebabs, and vegan chili.
Libations to Wet Your Whistle
- Whiskey & moonshine – Set up a DIY whiskey tasting station with various whiskeys, moonshine and whiskey mixes like Lynchburg Lemonade.
- Beer – Ice down American lagers and beers like Coors, Budweiser, Miller. Serve in plastic red solo cups.
- Wine & sangria – Chardonnay, rosé, and sweeter white wines pair well with country cooking. Make up big buckets of fruity sangria.
- Mason jar drinks – Premix fun cocktails like Adios Amigos, Alabama Slammers and Crimson Tide then serve in mason jars.
- Punch bowls – Big bowls of fruit punch, Arnold Palmers, Southern sweet tea with vodka or bourbon floated on top.
- Mocktails – For non-drinkers, whip up fun mocktail versions of classic cocktails, or serve up root beer floats.
Get Guests Moseyin’ with Country Games
Once your group is fed and sufficiently liquored up, it’s time to get those boots moving! Organize fun country games and activities that are sure to get the whole herd hoopin’ and hollerin’ all night long.
Mechanical Bull
No country bash is truly complete without a mechanical bull ride challenge! See who can last the longest without getting thrown while friends cheer them on. Award fun novelty trophies or sashes to the cow folk who stay on for over 30 seconds or a minute.
Line Dancing
Hire a local line dancing instructor to come teach popular partner country dances like the 10-step Texas Two-Step, Cowboy Charleston and Cowboy Boogie. They’ll have everyone movin’ and twirlin’ across the dance floor in no time.
80s Country Karaoke
Pass the mic around the room, or set up a machine dedicated just to country karaoke. Provide binders full of classic 80s country hits to sing. Give out funny prizes for best dressed, most passionate performance, or biggest sing-along.
Cornhole Toss
In between dancing, guests will enjoy getting their bean bag toss on with laid back games of cornhole. Provide a few sets of DIY plywood boards painted in country motifs like cowhide, bandanas, and denim. Scatter around open lawn areas for casual play.
80s Country Music Trivia
Test your gang’s knowledge of old school 80s country with trivia on artists, songs, lyrics and more. Hand out cute prize baskets overflowing with bandanas, sunflower seeds, cowboy hats and other southern goodies to the brainiest cowpokes.
Dance Off
Get the party pumping by hosting a partner dance off to upbeat 80s country songs. Judges award prizes for best costumes, most energetic performance, silliest moves and more.
Add some more from my list of 80s party games.
Send Guests Off with Down Home Favors
After a night of epic country revelry, give your guests fun hillbilly favors to commemorate the hoedown.
- Mason jar gifts like homemade jam, trail mix, cookies or cocktail mixes
- Pie slices wrapped up in plastic wrap and tied off with gingham ribbon
- Bandanas & kerchiefs rolled up and tied with jute string
- Sunflower seeds or boiled peanuts in cello bags sealed with custom stickers
- Photo booth prints from their glamour shots at your DIY photo booth
- Campfire s’more kits with all the fixings in cute boxes or bags
- Koozies and chapstick printed with country sayings
- Wine charms made from jewelry pieces, buttons and colorful cord
Conclusion
You’re all set for throwing one unforgettable down home 80s country-themed extravaganza. From the perfect venue dressed to the nines in rustic chic decor to big buffets of finger-lickin’ BBQ grub and mason jars overflowing with booze—your guests will think they woke up in the pages of Country Living!
Just remember to relax, have fun, and don’t worry…them city slickers will be happy as pigs in mud. So get on your boots, wrangle up your posse and get ready for the best 80s honky tonk hoedown this side of the Mason Dixon!
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