A Night in Paris: Father Daughter Dance

Last night marked another fabulous Father Daughter dance at our school. This is my second year as co-chair for the event. Our first year was a pajama party so we wanted to get a little fancy this time around. After searching Pinterest for some fabulous ideas, A Night In Paris became our favorite pick.

To get our creative juices flowing we started with this beautiful watercolor Paris pack from Paper Sphinx on Creative Market. We bought it for $12 and used it for all our invitations and posters for the dance. Super chic!

I rented an Eiffel Tower from a local prop company for $50. To save on delivery charges I pick it up and dropped it off myself with my truck. A super fun touch for a special evening! For the backdrop to our photo shoot we opted for pink and white stripes. We found a plastic table cloth roll from Oriental Trading Company and gave us 100 ft. for $20. We also used it to cover all the tables at the event. It was a deal and really looked great.

A local coffee shop and two friends had the bistro tables and chairs for us to borrow. Much better than renting them and it was a cute touch to have the sitting area at the dance. We had floral donations and also used silk flowers to add some Parisian flower market touches. Our original inspiration was these beautiful bistro windows!

Bistro Windows

To make the windows we used foam board. I hand drew all the pastries on the window and colored it in with colored pencils. We used black 1″ masking tape to make the window lines. For the window box, it was a separate piece of black foam board that was cut and hot glued together and onto the back of the window. The ivy pieces are so light weight they just sat inside the box. We initially had plans to hang the windows from the ceiling with hooks but they were so light that we were actually able to tape them to the wall. The black and white striped awning was poster board from Hobby Lobby. I cut foam board triangles and glued them to the back of the poster board to hold them out from the wall. There is a wooden dowel on folded under the top of the poster board with eye hooks on the side. This allowed us to hand from the ceiling as well but with a few pieces of tape it just stuck to the wall. The overall affect was stunning!

A Night In Paris dance set up in our gym foyer. Bistro tables, raffle table, and concessions.

Vintage bicycle for a prop used with silk and real flowers. Silk flowers and galvanized pails were from Michaels craft store. The fresh flowers were a donation from Native Floral in Milwaukee.

The bistro awning was made with one large sheet of black paper and then we glued down alternating white pieces. The top was folded over a piece of foam board cut about 2-3″ wide, alternatively you could use a wooden dowel with eye hooks on the side to hang. I suggest using a dowel. It hung with fishing line from the ceiling in two parts, the top and the front to create the “hang” affect. You can see the white hooks in the photo. It really was a great addition!

If you are planning a Father Daughter Dance I sure hope this helps you! It was such a fun theme and we really got creative. Everybody walked in and felt they were transported to Paris. The girls truly enjoyed it all. Good luck with your planning!