Have a Boat Themed Celebration
There are many different ways to plan a boat themed birthday party. You can go all out and rent a boat or yacht for an evening out in the water. If you just want to recreate the boat experience indoors, set up your venue with a bayside flair. Does this Spark an idea?
Boat Themed Invitations
For a paperless and more high-tech invite, choose an online interactive invite. You can have an image of a boat or cruise ship in open water with the name of the ship as the celebrant's name. Include an image of a captain standing on deck, throwing lifesavers. When he throws a lifesaver, a recipient will have to click on it in order to receive a the details of the invite..
For traditional invites, design your cards with cruise ship cut-outs, or have the actual invite shaped like a boat. Include anchor charms or lifesaver candies.
You may also opt to recreate a travel brochure with an image of a cruise ship and itinerary details for the party.
Set-up and Decor
Greet guests with a life preserver arch made of red, white and blue balloons, which makes a perfect spot for a photo-op.Hand out leis, shell necklaces or nautical hats.
You can decorate the room with tropical sunsets or an ocean-blue motif. For a children's party, post or hang cutouts of whales, dolphins and fish.
You can also situate fake palm trees around the room. Using paper mache, make lighthouses and little islands. Hang seagull cutouts from the ceiling.
Use white table linens with blue skirts, silver chargers, white plates and crystal glasses. White and silver balloons can be spread out on the floor. For a centerpiece, use ice buckets with chilled champagne. Spread sea shells around the base of the bucket.
For a less formal table setting, use a blue plastic or vinyl tablecloth and jazz it up with place mats made from laminated pictures of boats or sea animals cut from magazines. Set seashells or plastic boat anchors from a party store around the table, or placed them in a fish bowl to use as a centerpiece.
Food and Entertainment
You can hire a band or DJ to play chill cruise music for dancing. A steel drum band gives the ambience of an island getaway. Soundtracks of "The Love Boat" or "South Pacific" can entertain guests, or you can opt for sea chanties such as "The Black Ball Line" or "The Island Lass."
Serve a buffet of fresh seafood -- grilled fished, boiled lobster, fish sticks for the kids and shrimp cocktails. Surf and Turf is another option.
For the birthday cake, cut a rectangular cake and shape it into a sailboat shape by using a knife and a cardboard stencil of a boat. Frost the hull in blue and the sail in white. If you aren't crafty at cutting cakes, make a rectangular cake, frost it in blue and attach origami sailboats with toothpicks.
Tags: cruise ship, Boat Themed, rectangular cake