I was in charge of a fun daddy daughter dance for my Young Women’s group for girls ages 11-18 this past week. When we were planning the event, there was some worry about spending the entire activity time on just a dance, so we added in some fun activities into the mix to help keep the party fun and engaging for everyone, even for those girls who had dads traveling that week for work.

To help you not have to start from scratch with your own planning, I thought I would share all of my plans and activities here so it’s easy for you to pull off your own daddy daughter dance!

Planning a Daddy Daughter Dance – Where to Start?

1. Pick a Theme

The first step was deciding on a theme. We talked through a few different ideas, but ultimately settled on “Now & Forever.” I thought this was such a cute theme and we used it to incorporate a fun dress code (more on that below).

You can use a copy of my party invite. I printed 4 of these per page to pass out to the girls to make sure the dads would save the date for the upcoming dance. I also printed a couple in full page size and put them on the foyer doors.

You can find the Now & Forever Daddy Daughter Dance Invite Canva Template here or simply right click on the image above to save it.

Then, you’ll just need to add your date, time, location, dress code, or any other details. I added those in the white overlay box at the bottom of the flyer.

2. Pick a Date and Time

Get your date on the schedule as far in advance as you can! We had to pivot from a different activity due to budget constraints (we were hoping to go ice skating – but a ward split left us with a minimal budget!). That meant we only had about a month of heads up for families.

While this was fine, I would give your families 2-3 months, if you can. I know for us some families already had different work or family travel scheduled for our date and wouldn’t be able to make it.

3. Pick a Dress Code “Theme”

For an event like this, you’ll want to make sure families know what they should wear. My youngest class presidency, who was in charge of this activity, didn’t want to dress fancy. So we went with a match or swap decades dress code. It was SO much fun and the girls and dads loved it! It was easy, casual and comfortable, and they could wear just about anything to get as themed or as casual as they preferred.

I highly recommend that dress code, but you could do a fancy dress up night, encourage them to match colors or match outfits, or whatever else fits your theme.

4. Make a Schedule of Events

You know your group of girls best – so decide what will work for your own group. For our group, we wanted it to be easy but interactive. With that in mind, this was our planned schedule:

7:00 – Arrive and mingle

7:10 – Start with opening prayer and spiritual thought

7:15 – Daddy Daughter Trivia Game Show

7:35 – Dance Party and Treats

8:15 – Final Daddy Daughter Dance slow song and then Closing Prayer – Turn the Music back on but flip on the lights for clean-up help!

Daddy Daughter Dance Easy Food Ideas

You can’t have a dance party without food! I knew exactly what I wanted for this event – a church dance worthy punch and some easy grab and eat treats including cookies, brownies, grapes, and sweetarts! Super easy and delicious, without being over the top. We of course had water in a drink dispenser as well.

Daddy Daughter Dance Food Idea List:

• Cookies
• Brownies
• Grapes
• Sweetarts
• Party Punch
• Water
• Veggie tray
• Rice Krispie Treats
• Pretzels
• Goldfish
• Cheesecake Bites

Easy 3-Ingredient Party Punch

This is seriously the easiest punch recipe and you’ll get rave reviews. It is SO tasty! It’s a winner for sure.

• 1 – 2 liter of Lemon-Lime soda (You can totally go off brand for this one!)
• 4 cups of Pineapple Juice (this is about half a jug, I just made a double batch)
• 1 carton of Sherbet – I like Raspberry but you can do orange for Halloween, Lime for St Patrick’s Day, or a rainbow mix for any other time of the year. As it melts down into your punch, it will color your punch so consider your color preference.
• Optional Extra: You can add an additional garnish if you’d like of some frozen fruit!

That’s it, just pour in both the soda and juice. Scoop the sherbet in big scoops and drop into the punch bowl. Add your optional garnish, if desired. You can print the recipe here, so you have it on hand for your party!

Daddy Daughter Dance Photo Booth

A great addition to your party night is a spot for everyone to stop and snap a photo! Our girls all gathered for one big group photo at the end and it was SO cute! Plus of course, everyone got photos with their dads.

Stop by your local Dollar Tree to see what they have available first, I was able to find a lot of my party supplies at The Dollar Tree, including:

• Plastic table cloth
• Balloons
• Balloon Tape to make the arch
• Glitter for the table
• Doilies for table decor
• Plates
• Cups
• Napkins

Check to see if your store has these doorway curtains as well. Mine didn’t, but Target saved the day! I picked up 2 of the pink doorway curtains since they are only 36″ wide and an additional set of stars that we hung in front to add even more glitz!

I also picked up additional balloons, and I was glad I did. They had different colors than the mixed packs at my Dollar Tree and they were easier to blow up and a little larger, too. They’re all the soft pink ones in the picture above. The rest of the balloons in my picture came from The Dollar Tree.

Daddy Daughter Trivia Game Show

A highlight of the activity was kicking off our event with a fun Daddy Daughter Trivia Game Show. I had the Newlywed Game Show as inspiration and also some Jimmy Kimmel clips where “Dads answer questions about their kids?” which are hilarious if you haven’t seen them.

Picking the Team Volunteers:

I had the youngest class president run the game show. We just asked for volunteer dads and daughter partners. I had planned to have a tie-breaker to challenge the girls to tie a necktie on their dad in 30 seconds and pick whichever of those participants the rest of the group liked best, but we had 3 pairs volunteer really quickly and so we went with those 3 partnerships.

Another fun tie-breaker or challenge idea I considered was having the dads give their daughter an up-do. Best finished hair style wins! But I didn’t know how done up the girls hair would be for the night. It might be a fun challenge to keep in my back pocket for future activities.

Answering the Questions:

Everyone would write down their answer to the questions at the same time, then the daughter would read hers first for the set of questions for her to answer about her dad. Then, we switched and the dad would answer questions first to see if they matched his daughter’s answer for the next set of questions. If they matched, their team scored a point.

For the final round, everyone drew an arrow on their mini whiteboard. Then, in speed round style, they would point their arrow at which of the two of them the descriptive word best described. Here’s the list of questions I decided on, I’ll also include a printable list!

Daddy Daughter Trivia Questions

Daughter:

• How old is your dad?
• What is your dad’s favorite meal?
• What is your dad’s job title?
• What is your dad scared of?
• Which of your physical features is most like your dad?
• Does your dad have any allergies?
• What is your dad’s most embarrassing moment?

Daddy:

• Name one of your daughter’s teachers.
• When is your daughter’s birthday (with year)?
• Who is your daughter’s best friend?
• What’s your daughter’s favorite school subject?
• What would be your daughter’s dream job when she gets older?
• What did your daughter give you for Father’s Day this year?
• Who is your daughter’s crush?

Who is…?

• Loudest
• Messiest
• Funniest
• Sleepiest
• Healthiest
• Clumsiest
• Bravest

I’ve added a few extra to this list from the ones that we used so you can pick and choose which questions might be best for your own group. Don’t feel like you have to use all of the questions included here! We went with about 5 from each category, but you can adapt to fit your time available.

The answers were hilarious! One dad/daughter team only scored 1 point! (We didn’t score the final section.)

Easy Daddy Daughter Dance Playlist

And finally, the main event! It’s easier than ever to be your own DJ. Ask around and borrow a high quality good speaker. Someone in our Young Women’s presidency had a Rockbox which was easy and great!

Then, look for another someone who has a paid subscription to your choice of music streaming such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube music, Pandora, or any other similar apps that will play ad-free. I have a family Spotify account so that one was easy.

I then scoured over the music lists and party music ideas to find suggestions that would be fun, upbeat, and get everyone dancing while still being clean and appropriate. These were the songs I came up with. Spotify lets you share your music playlist, so you can just add my playlist to your own account and then edit from there. I knew we would only have time for about 15 songs, so we ended up playing tracks 2-15 for our dance. I skipped track 1 as we were a little behind schedule.

The playlist includes more songs then that, which are additional songs I also considered. So feel free to adjust my list as desired.

I’ll add a couple of notes on my song list below, to help you decide on your own songs:

• Slow Dance – I only wanted 1-2 slow dance songs. I chose to include Forever Young which was a classic from my era (90’s) church dances that I thought the dads would relate to. It also perfectly matched our theme. The second song I picked was Lady for our closing slow dance song.
• Line/Group Dance – I wanted a couple of group dance songs to break up the awkwardness for those that don’t think they can dance. We did a line dance activity about 8 months earlier as a combined youth activity the youngest YW class was in charge of (which was actually a lot of fun!) so I knew they would know these dance!
  • We included Runaway which is an FSY dance routine. You can find it on YouTube if you don’t know it, but it’s hilarious and the kids just love it!
  • The other was Cupid Shuffle which is easy to pickup and fun to add flair to.
  • Another great option is the Cha Cha Slide which has all the steps outlined for you as it goes. I skipped including this one because of the limited amount of songs I could include for our time available, but it’s another really great option.
• Limbo Line – This ended up being the absolute highlight of the night! The girls and dads loved it! Eventually it got so low that they were doing jumps, flips, and tricks over the pole instead. I planned for this to last 2 songs but it went fore more like 3 before we finally pulled the limbo stick (which I just used a long PVC pipe). Songs we used for this were: Limbo Rock and Better When I’m Dancin’.
• Songs for Dad – I had a couple of ideas of songs to include to pull in the dad’s era of church dances, but I ended up sticking with just one main one – Jump Around. Other great options if you want to include a song or two would be: Sandstorm, Ice Ice Baby, and U Can’t Touch This.
• Current Era Songs – You absolutely must include songs the girls will love! The playlist includes a lot of modern hits. I’ll say the #1 favorite song of the night, by far, was Shake it Off by Taylor Swift. HandClap is also a perfect song to get the dance going after an intro song to break the ice. It really gets everyone moving!

Spotify Daddy Daughter Dance Playlist

You can click to see my full Daddy Daughter Dance Playlist for your own inspiration. In case you don’t have Spotify, this picture lists the first 24 songs on the list, I have more 50 songs on the full playlist!

That’s it! With all those tips above you should be able to come up with a theme, food, activities, and song list quickly and easily. Our Daddy Daughter Dance was a huge hit and so much fun! We had some of the activity day girls come in towards the end of the event and they were asking if they would get to do a daddy daughter dance when they moved up to the Young Women’s program! We’ll definitely have to consider adding it to the calendar again in a couple of years.