Putting on a Father-Daughter Banquet

by Kristin
from Virtuous Daughters, June 2008~Volume 8, Number 3

Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ! Last month I was privileged to host a father/daughter banquet for our church. Tiffany asked me to share about it with you. I pray that you might be edified and inspired to have your own banquet if the Lord so directs!

​This was the third year our church had a father/daughter banquet. A young lady in her twenties had started doing it three years ago with the desire to be an encouragement to younger girls. Last year I helped another young lady put it on, and then this year I was in charge! I really enjoyed putting it together, though it was a lot of work! The greatest thing was seeing the different ways that the Lord blessed my endeavors and those of the ones who were helping me. 

The first thing that I would tell you if you desire to do something like this for the girls in your area is to PRAY! Now I know that you always hear this, but it really will make a difference in the success of your banquet! I decided from the very beginning that this was something I wanted to make a priority as I planned for the event. The Lord gave me the idea of setting aside 15 minutes each day just to pray for the banquet. So, everyday, from 11:00 to 11:15 was my father-daughter banquet prayer time. I would pray for whatever the Lord laid on my heart that day including:

~ that each young lady would grow closer to her father
~ that all of the fathers would realize the treasure that God had given them in their daughters
~ for direction regarding finding a speaker, decoration decisions, and who to ask to help me
~that preparations would go smoothly and that lessons would be learned from the glitches
~ that the hearts of all of the young ladies would be prepared for the message the speaker would give
~for families who it didn’t look like would be able to make it to the banquet, that God would work it out for them to come if that was His will

I am sure you can think of many other things to pray for; these were just a few of the things that the Lord laid on my heart. There were times when I was very busy and was tempted to get on with my day and start on other things, but I am so glad that I took the time to follow the Lord’s prompting on this! It truly made a difference. So please, please keep this in mind as you prepare!

Another thing that is very important to have is the blessing of your parents and other authorities in this endeavor. You will need their help, especially the help of your mother, a lot! Make sure that this is something that your family can commit time to in this season of your life. Your parents will more than likely have to take you to a lot of places throughout your preparations, especially if you don’t drive yet, like me! This banquet is something that you can put on for a variety of groups; you can do it for the young ladies and fathers of your church, your home-school group, community, or a young ladies’ discipleship group. It is important to also gain the blessing of the leaders of these groups, for example, the pastor/elders of your church.

After this, you need to decide on a place to have the banquet. This will probably largely depend on how many people will be attending. You could use your church, a community center, a home, a public room in a library, or even the outdoors! Some other things to think about at this point are tables and chairs. This past year we rented 5 ft. round tables. It wasn’t too expensive and they are more formal than rectangle tables.  Another thing you need to keep in mind is the finances for the event. Will you charge for tickets or not? You want to make it affordable for everyone, but you also must cover your expenses. If it is a church sponsored event, the church may cover all or most of your costs. In this case you will need to be careful about saving receipts and documenting expenses. You can do this banquet on a low budget!

Next you need to decide on your menu. At our banquets, we have done something like:
~Baked Chicken
~ two or three side vegetables: potatoes, green beans, and carrots are easy to do for large crowds
~fruit salad
~green salad
~rolls
~dessert
~tea or water

This was too much food for my family to make all on our own! So I thought of some other older girls in our church who could help me with the cooking, and I asked someone to do the potatoes, someone to do the fruit salad, and so on. This does make it a lot easier! Another idea would to have it be catered, but that would be more expensive. This past year we bought the dessert, plain cheesecake, at Sams, and we cut the pieces in half. Then we made some berry sauce ourselves to drizzle on top. We figured out that if we bought them and cut the pieces in half it would be cheaper (and a lot easier!) than making the cheesecakes ourselves. Remember to plan for other condiments like salt and pepper, ice for the drinks, butter for the rolls, salad dressing, etc.

You can either serve the food buffet style, or serve it to them at the tables. I asked 4-5 younger boys from our church to be “waiters” and that went really well.  We had the meal served in courses. When everyone arrived, the salads and rolls were at their place on the table. The butter, salad dressing, and salt and pepper were already on the table too. Then the boys served the main plate with the chicken and vegetables, gave drink refills, and later served the dessert. You may want to do buffet style but it is harder to have a smooth flow of people if they all have to go thru a serving line. So just think it through to find what will work best.

Decorations! This is something you can have a lot of fun with. ;)  My grandmother has a lot of neat party things, so we were able to borrow a lot from her. You can borrow things from friends, or try to find things on sale. Keep in mind that you may have to buy some things the first time you do something like this, but if you do it for more than one year you will have them for each year as well as other events like baby/bridal showers, etc. We used white round tablecloths, and had a square reflector mirror in the middle. We put a glass hurricane lamp on top of the mirror, and had it filled with sand and put a white candle in the middle. We put some greenery around the glass lamp on top of the mirror. Our theme colors for this year were red and white, last year we did mint green and light pink and that was really pretty too. Then we sprinkled red rose petals all around the mirror and the rest of the table. This was a really great thing because it was so pretty, yet fairly cheap. Some grocery stores sell bags of rose petals in their floral department. You just have to call and reserve them a few days in advance. A bag would be enough for all of your tables, depending on how many people come. Some other decorations we had were silk houseplants and trees around the room with little white lights in them. You can also have candles and greenery on other things around the room like a piano, a hall table, etc. One other thing we have done is run 2 long strips of ribbon in your theme color across the table, forming an X. This is great if you can find ribbon on sale!
Dishes are something else to consider, we have used clear plastic plates, cups, and silverware. This works pretty well, and looks somewhat formal. If you have access to a glass set of dishes that match your decorations that would be wonderful. We used paper napkins in our theme color. 

After you have your plans somewhat in place, it’s time to send out invitations! You can hand them out yourself, or send them in the mail. You can make them quite easily, and it’s fun too! State the event, time, date, and place, and ask for an rsvp. You can tell them they may wear formal attire if they wish. Address the envelopes to the dads and each of the daughters as well.

One thing that will really impact your banquet is the program you have! You can simply have them come and eat, but there are a lot of ways you can make it more meaningful! We had a speaker, a young lady in her twenties. She spoke on having a deep, vibrant relationship with our Heavenly Father, and was really an encouragement to all of the young ladies! Make sure that you get someone who can speak to a variety of age groups and be interesting to listen to. You can have a speaker for the fathers and one for the daughters, or just one for the daughters. Other ideas for your program are: have father/daughter portraits taken, play a fun game, or have some special music. This past year we played a game where all of the daughters had to tie a necktie on their dad. The dad was sitting in a chair and could give verbal instructions, but could not touch the tie. This was great for learning to work together and following instructions! We had certificates for the tie with the longest tail, the most authentic looking tie, the tie with the best team work, etc. This was a good game that was fun, but not too silly. At the end of the banquet six of the older girls sang a song that we had practiced together as a charge to the younger girls. That was very meaningful! We had the words printed out on cardstock and in a matted frame to give to each family afterwards. One thing you can do to bring the whole evening together is to have a theme verse or spiritual concept to center the evening around. Having a meaningful program is something that can really impact God’s kingdom and encourage all of the girls. If they just come and eat, then it’s kind of all about the food. Having a speaker and doing an activity with their dad really makes it a night to remember. If you are going to do all this work, you want it to be a time of spiritual growth and encouragement, not just “another banquet”! Having a meaningful program is a way to accomplish this. Remember what your primary goal in putting on the banquet is: to have an event that will draw fathers and daughters closer together and strengthen their walk with the Lord.

Some other details you can do to add extra special touches are:
~ Have name cards at each place, placing the Dad in the middle of his daughters, if he has more than one of them
~ Have after-dinner mints at each place
~Have menus at everyone’s spot
~Play background music, a recording or live musician
~Dim the lights and have a candlelight banquet – this is where having the trees with lights comes in handy!
~ Have a podium nicely decorated for your speaker, as well as flowers to give her when she’s done

One thing that the Lord reminded my family and those who helped while we were putting this banquet together was how the enemy was going to seek to make this banquet unsuccessful! The day of the banquet a lot of things seemed to come up and my Mom kept reminding us to not let them be a bother, but to rejoice in the Lord! In a way that was encouraging because we felt like this banquet was going to be really effective for the Lord, which it was in the end!  So keep in mind that even if you plan diligently, the enemy may still cause things to go wrong if you are advancing God’s kingdom!   Be encouraged!

​I am sure that you can be creative and think of a lot of other ideas! I pray that this article has been an encouragement to you and given you a vision for something you can do to encourage the fathers and daughters in your area! You would have to plan quickly, but perhaps you could do something in honor of Father’s Day! Remember, no matter what you do or how elaborate or simple your banquet is, if you have glorified the Lord and edified others, you have succeeded. May the Lord bless you as you work and shine for Him in the place He has put you!