Titanic Birthday Party — Cake Maestra

Let’s be honest. 2020 was a bit of a sinking ship. When it came time to plan my son’s birthday party in the Summer, Titanic was the obvious choice. He’s obsessed with it!

With Covid hitting in March, I thought for sure we would be fine in time for the epic party I throw every September. These parties are as much an opportunity for me to go crazy developing a theme as it is a celebration for him. Normally I fill the house with people and have activities in the front and back yard. This year was tough because we couldn’t do any of that. And yet, I still wanted to throw an epic party - so I did, just with an incredibly limited guest list! We had just a few precious family members in attendance and a few neighbors that walked over to say hello. We kept it all socially-distanced and I tailored the food and activities to enable people to be together, but separate and safe.

I was pretty excited when the theme was decided because I knew exactly what kind of cake I wanted to make. That was the “easy” party - at least in my mind, though not to execute! Planning a party with social distancing and safety in mind was not as easy.

Decorations started with the lifeboat. I tasked my husband with finding the perfect vessel. He scoured Facebook marketplace and found someone desperate to get a 14 ft. wooden boat off their property by the weekend. It was a few hours away and my darling husband should never be trusted to drive a trailer again, but he came back with an incredible boat. I added a little Cricut vinyl lettering and voilà, we had an instant Titanic lifeboat! Behind the thought was that with 14 feet, one child could sit in the back and another in the front - “together,” but with plenty of room between to be safe.

But let’s get to the cake - after all, this is Cake Maestra. I can say that I’ve now made a Titanic cake. It’s a bucket list item that I don’t need to do again. This one was hard, folks.

The planning started months in advance. I spent weeks developing and refining plans - I knew I wanted it to function. I wanted lights in the water and I wanted those smoke stacks to actually smoke. The best thing about having a kid obsessed with the Titanic was that every time I had a question, I had a 7-yr old encyclopedia a few feet away telling me what I needed to know.

I’m going to do a separate post in a few weeks about the cake itself and get into the nitty gritty of my process, but for now I’ll share a few pictures of the finished product.

One thing I was really excited about was having an iceberg. I looked everywhere for styrofoam icebergs. I even priced out buying a massive block of styrofoam and figured I could go to town on it with a chainsaw. Did I want to do that? No, I value my hands and arms and am not confident in my ability to not cut them off! Fortunately my hands were saved because the cost of a big block of styrofoam was a lot more than I had expected.

My husband pointed out that for less than the price we were quoted for buying styrofoam, we could just have an actual iceberg. He found a company - Hot Ice owned by Robert Roberts. Robert is pretty incredible and has done ice sculptures for movies including “National Treasure 2,” and the best part was that he seemed genuinely excited about this party theme. He came up with the idea of an ice cream luge on the side which let me stand at the top with a scooper and slide ice cream down into the kids’ bowls. I thought it was such a cool idea. I love working with people that come up with things I would never think of myself.

We kept everything in the front yard this year and wanted the feel of a garden party. Having individual family tables was important for safety and I found the perfect vintage rentals at Something Vintage Rentals in Temple Hills, Maryland. They were really wonderful. I felt inspired looking through their website and want to plan parties just to be able to use some of the beautiful items they have! We chose to do a combination of standing cocktail tables and seated tables. Something Vintage had the most brilliant wooden chairs, tables, oars for the boat, even an old steamer trunk that looked like we fished it out of the bottom of the ocean - everything I needed to really pull this theme together.

I always look for some way to have the birthday kid’s name or initials displayed - usually in a birthday banner, but I also like to get creative. I found these lazy susans on clearance, glued some rope to them and for a few dollars I had a nautical element that was a unique use of the space.

Another place that required some creativity with social distancing was games and entertainment. We rented a cornhole set from Something Vintage and bought extra beanbags so that each family had their own set and didn’t need to share. While perusing the Titanic Museum gift shop online, I saw Titanic-opoly and thought it would make a really great door prize. We came up with the idea of a trivia game - ten questions to test the knowledge of our crowd. I found paddles on Amazon and attached lettering to them. I thought the kids would really get in to it, but it was the adults that were pretty hardcore about winning.

I always like to give themed gifts to our guests. This year, we gave a really great book, a Titanic pen, some slime (my personal nemesis, but I’m happy to inflict it on other households!), Lifesavers, and some fun Activity booklets that I found on Etsy and had professionally printed.

The same person that designed the activity booklet offered these invitations, thank you cards, and cookie wrappers on Etsy. I thought they were super cute and I asked her to design water bottle labels to match.

Food was all individually portioned. It’s a lot of work preparing a meal like this, but the benefit of not having to share serving utensils made it worth it. I wanted a combination of kid-friendly food that fit in with a luncheon / elegant garden party.

I enjoy crafting and adding personal touches throughout any party. I had fun designing the captain’s wheel stand which my father helped to assemble. Table centerpieces and utensil packets were fun and ways to pull the party together. Even a Titanic-themed costume that I had made for my mother to wear to a party years ago made an appearance.

All in all, my son had a wonderful time and at the end of the day, this is what is important. Whether the party is just our family and a pizza or a Titanic bash in our front yard, it’s about being together and celebrating the blessings we have. But going all out on this party was a ton of fun, I will admit!

Unless otherwise noted, all photography is courtesy of Elizabeth Rodenhizer Photography

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