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Elliot Spencer

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Elliot Spencer ,

Elliot Spencer

Opinion

Don’t judge people who love celebrating

'A part of my life is missing and it really hurts'

August 27, 2020 13:45
(Photo: Blake Ezra)
2 min read

The last time I created an event was on my birthday, Sunday March 15. I woke up on Monday 16th and pretty much overnight my business was completely decimated,along with my fellow events planners, DJs, dancers, table centre companies, photographers and of course the venues. For me it is nine years of really hard work —blood, sweat, tears — gone in the blink of an eye and who knows when it will return?

I’ve tried to stay away from reading newspapers, social media and watching the news in order to try and maintain some sort of sanity. Many of my friends within the industry are depressed, anxious and worried about the future and asking how we are going to recover (if at all) from this dreadful past few months — myself included.

Over the course of this Covid nightmare many friends and clients have reached out to offer support and words of encouragement which has at times been a much needed morale boost however I was shocked and saddened to read a piece in this newspaper by Miriam Shaviv with the headline “It’s time to end extravagant parties” (JC, August 14) This poorly timed article “celebrated” the fact that Covid-19 had brought an end to large scale “glitzy” events. That’s right…celebrated. It made her happy.

Having read this in disbelief I was left struggling to understand how anyone can celebrate the end of these once in a lifetime celebrations. I’m sure some people are guilty of spending more than they should have or couldn’t afford to make a party but ultimately its nobody else’s business but their own how much they spend or where or what they do to celebrate these landmarks.