From the Founder
13 years of planning, then a doctorate researching what makes an event exemplary, beyond logistics & decor.
Events have been my work for thirteen years. I spent the first 7 years of my career as the lead conference planner for a continuing education department at a top medical university: high-stakes programming for discerning clients, partnering with high-touch properties across the US and abroad. Along the way I started my own wedding business because the corporate work had started to feel repetitive and, apparently I don’t like free time.
Fast forward and I was in grad school, pursuing a PhD in Tourism, Hospitality & Event Management. My role shifted from guiding clients to guiding students, teaching logistics alongside strategies for dealing with difficult personalities. I wanted to share the tools I had learned in the field so my students wouldn’t have to navigate the real world without a reference guide. So I built the curriculum from industry best practices scaffolded with stories from my own experience in the field.
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Every semester, what I was learning in my own PhD coursework went straight into what I was teaching. But the pattern I was really after only surfaced once I started doing my own research. Because I was teaching, studying, and researching the same topics, I kept noticing the same thing underneath the most powerful and memorable events: the ones where attendees slipped into a flow state (it’s actually an academic construct, not just a TikTok trend) and the moment becomes an experience. It’s there that something deeper is activated that makes the event more than just the sum of the logistics. My own research finally gave me the room to untangle it properly. [It took a while.]
I went looking for why two events with the same budget, the same vendors, and the same beautiful aesthetics can feel completely different to the people in the room. One can be logistically perfect and forgettable. Another can be barely holding together, and somehow it’s the one with the most moving atmosphere. The answer turned out to be sociological. Resonance: a call and response between a person and the world around them, the feeling of being recognized, anticipated, and known, and answering back with delight, or surprise, or tears. It is what happens when one beautifully planned detail emotionally touches someone, or creates that slightly indescribable “you should have been there” feeling. That pattern of resonance running through curated moments, immersive experiences, and a moving narrative became the Authentic Event Experience Framework in my research. The AEEF is what Resonance Co. teaches.
That is what I teach now: how to name the thing you already feel in the room, and how to build for it on purpose. If you treat this work as craft and not a checklist, you are the planner I made this for. You belong here.
