It’s been over 25 years since my wife and I planned our wedding. I’ve been thinking about wedding planning as we at Mason Korea have been working on our upcoming 10th anniversary celebration. As with a wedding, we want to create a memorable event and an occasion to imagine a bright future.
As with planning a wedding too, there’s a lot of detail. Have we invited all the appropriate people? Do we have the RSVPs? How are people getting from one place to another? How do we make sure everyone attending has a great time? How will each event proceed? Do we have all the equipment we need? And so on.
There are a lot of events to plan over the three days of our celebration:
- A kickoff party
- An opening ceremony
- A panel and reception to facilitate collaboration between Korean industry and researchers on the one hand and Mason Korea and Mason US on the other
- A symposium sponsored by our Center for Security Policy Studies—Korea, on Korea’s role in Indo-Pacific security concerns
- And a final 10th celebration gala.
Across this three-day celebration, there will be hundreds of guests. Which means that, just as with a wedding, there’s some nervousness that all our planning will be successful. Probably not everything will go as planned.
But that is okay. Because what makes a celebration—be it a wedding or a 10th anniversary —is finally not the perfect logistics, timing, or food, but the community that the event gathers and even creates.
If you are in Korea, we hope you will be part of that community. Especially, please consider coming to our opening ceremony. As with a wedding, your presence affirms and supports the future that the ceremony celebrates. And just as with a wedding, you can enjoy a reception too.