“All you need is love” and an awesome Beatles theme for the perfect birthday party. My husband and I are big Beatles fans and chose “Yellow Submarine” as our sons’ theme for his first birthday. We coordinated his cake smash with an all-out underwater party. It took a lot of creative thinking to make this happen. Licensed Beatles party supplies is pretty limited, expensive and only available online. Here’s how we made it happen.

Yellow Submarine Cake Smash Session

My sister really went all out for this adorable cake smash session. She hand-painted an underwater mural for the first scene covered with hand drawn musical creatures and floating music notes!

I found a yellow submarine onesie for my son to wear for the first scene and then chose underwater looking swim shorts for the actual cake smashing (which he wasn’t very happy about).

For the last scene -“The Bath Scene”- we snagged a cartoon Beatles shower curtain and used it as the bath time backdrop. We converted a baby tub into an authentic yellow submarine by spray painting it yellow, adding windows and even a scope.

Yellow Submarine Birthday Party

Since I chose to use a party place to host my son’s first birthday, I didn’t need as many decorations. I tried to keep it simple. We requested royal blue and yellow tablecloths and alternated them throughout the room. I ordered some paper submarines to hang above the cake table too. Instead of one big cake, we opted for yellow and blue cupcakes from Sam’s club. It was $13 for $30 cupcakes! A steal if you ask me. In each cupcake, I placed a paper yellow submarine that I had printed out and hot-glued to a toothpick.

At the party, we also used the submarine bath from the photoshoot as a cooler. For my son’s outfit, I purchased a royal blue t-shirt that says, “I’m 1!” and ironed on a yellow submarine. My husband and I wore our yellow submarine hats. He wore his Sgt. Pepper t-shirt and I wore a plain yellow one.

Although it would have been SO much easier if everything was licensed, our party was really inexpensive. All our guests got the party theme and thought it was a super cute idea. We even played Beatles songs in our party room during the event.

Have you thrown a Beatles themed party? I’d love to hear what you did in the comments.