Can we talk about father/daughter and mother/son dances for a moment?
I don’t have a problem with the tradition at all. I’m not about abolishing it outright, though I do think it’s up to couples and the parents involved whether they really want to have these particular dances. They make no difference in the legality of the ceremony, and etiquette more or less shrugs its shoulders and says it’s up to you whether or not you’d care to dance with your parents under these particular circumstances.
No, it’s not that they happen, it’s more the fact that so many people think the only possible choices for the dance are things like Thank Heaven for Little Girls, Daddy’s Little Girl, Butterfly Kisses, and other such sentimental, oh so expected classics. It isn’t even the fact that I detest each one of these songs with a purple panting passion. I wouldn’t mind yet another mother/son dance to Wonderful World as long as I knew they both had a soft spot for Satchmo, or that she wanted to dance to that because it’s the song she used to croon him to sleep in his crib days.
It’s the fact that I know in my heart that there are plenty of moms and dads out there who have serious twinkletoes. It’s the fact that so many people use the expected songs instead of choosing something with personal meaning for them.
There’s absolutely no need to limit your choices to half a dozen songs that may or may not mean anything to either party. You don’t have to do an awkward high school slow dance with your dad if he has a couple dancing chops.
The proof? I found a couple of fun videos of unexpected daddy/daughter dances over at YouTube, and I share one of them with you now.
This pair with their tongue-in-cheek scan of every popular dance in the bride’s lifetime (and a few clearly before her time!) made me smile even though I’m usually not so huge a fan of the Very Obviously Choreographed Wedding Dance. The bride, however, does highlight the importance of bustling up that train before attempting to bust a move! I’m amazed she didn’t land on her nose at any point in the proceedings.
Okay, WordPress won’t let me embed the video for some reason, so I’ll just have to give you the URL. Here it is:
If mom and dad can dance, if there’s a non-traditional song that means something to both partners, if there’s a style of dance you’re both reasonably competent at, don’t be afraid to go for broke.
Traditions can be great…but sometimes you need to know how to adapt them to you.
Oops, I didn’t realize my choice was a cliché!
We were going to use the Joey Ramone version of “What a Wonderful World”, which at least had some cultural significance for the mother/son dance (hubby grew up in Queens), but we couldn’t get a good copy. They wound up using a Joe Satriani instrumental.
My problem was that my two most sentimental father/daughter songs were COMPLETELY inappropriate. Dad and I had danced to the same song at a dinner for a couple of years in a row, but Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love” isn’t really a father/daughter song. And he did have a song he used to sing to me every morning to wake me up, but Tommy Tutone’s “867-5309/Jenny” isn’t really good parental dance fodder either. (“I got your number on the wall…”) So we wound up using a Frank Sinatra standard.
But we really TRIED for a good match! Our wedding song mentioned whores, if it makes you feel any better!
I was raised by a single mother, so I won’t have a father/daughter dance. My mother keeps pushing for a mother/daughter dance, and I’m still unsure. In part cause the only music she and I really agree on is rap, so it would have to be a very non-traditional dance, lol
My father and I sniffled our way through “Daddy’s Little Girl,” and I’d give anything in the world to have him back and do it all over again. And yes, I WAS Daddy’s little girl.
We danced several other times during my long-ago reception, but that particular dance was and is very precious to me.
To each his own, I say.
My dad loves The Carpenters, so we picked one of their songs (Why Do Birds Suddenly Appear, if I remember correctly.) And since hubby and his mom didn’t have strong feelings on the subject, we combined their dance with ours in the spirit of efficiency.
Me and my dad danced to “My Girl” by The Temptations. He sang the song to me while we danced, and I laughed and laughed.
We had a combined father/daughter and mother/son dance to Sunrise, Sunset, which also happens to be a very nice waltz (we’re ballroom dancers). My dad took several lessons so that he would be comfortable dancing with me at my wedding, and my husband’s mother took a lesson with him to learn how to follow. It went so well that the table of my closest family and family friends gave my dad a standing ovation at the end! Everyone was really impressed with how well he danced, despite not really being a dancer and growing up hearing impaired.
My dad and I got down to “Good Golly Miss Molly.” Some of my favorite photos from the wedding are of him and me dancing.
My dad and I danced to Pink Floyd’s “Learning to Fly,” which has always reminded me of him. We kind of consider it “our song.” Like Toni, my husband and his mom danced to it as well, since they didn’t have feelings one way or the other about it.