eOpicle

I have always considered event planning one of civilization’s more elaborate forms of voluntary suffering. We take an occasion that is supposedly meant to produce happiness—a wedding, gala, conference, anniversary, fundraiser, corporate retreat—and immediately bury it beneath spreadsheets, contracts, seating charts, vendor negotiations, dietary restrictions and thirty-seven email threads populated by people who refuse to use “Reply All” correctly. Somewhere between selecting the floral arrangements and discovering that the caterer charges extra for chairs, joy quietly leaves the building. The modern event is a monument to administrative entropy. Every decision creates three additional decisions. Every vendor introduces another portal, invoice, login and cancellation policy apparently drafted by the same legal scholar who negotiated humanity’s original contract with death. By the time the guests arrive, the planner has lived several lifetimes, lost faith in language and developed an inv...