Custom post Meta Date Format

I am using this code to get a custom field with a date stored withing the contact form 7 plugin, generated by the ‘advanced custom fields’ plugin:

elseif ( '_post_event_date' == $name )
    		$output = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'event_date', true);

This gets the date and displays it as “20140131” within the sent email but I need it formatted as “Friday, January 31st, 2014”, but I can seem to get this to work.

Here is what I have tried, but does not work:

elseif ( '_post_event_date' == $name )
    		$output = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'event_date', true);
    esc_html_e( date_i18n( 'l, F jS, Y' , strtotime( $event_date ) ) );

https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/advanced-custom-fields/