Dear Cassandra,
Choosing to live a life of financial freedom would never be easy. But remember that you are doing this for the long run. It might be hard now, but your future family will thank you! You Can Do It!
Love, Your Biggest Fan- You!
I wrote that message to myself at the beginning of our wedding planning. My fiancé and I had a tense argument the night before. I can’t remember what we were arguing about, but I vividly remember feeling overwhelmed and in despair. I was overwhelmed by all the money that we needed to gather to make this wedding a memorable one. It all came down to money.
My relationship with money has been a love-and-hate relationship.
I love what money can get me. I love that money can get me whatever I want from Amazon (shout out to all my Amazon lovers). I love that money can give me fun experiences with friends and families like going on desert safaris and traveling to other countries. However, I hate the waiting game. I hate waiting at the end of the month for my salary. I hate feeling restricted whenever I create a budget. So when it came to our wedding planning, I hated that I didn’t have all the money I needed right now for our day. I started asking myself some questions.
What type of wedding would make me truly happy?
Why am I choosing to spend a lot of money on my wedding?
What are the bigger goals that I have for myself aside from this wedding?
Who are the people that I would— without a doubt— want to celebrate this next milestone with me and who truly want to see me happy?
These questions ruminated in my mind as I met with my fiancé. Thankfully, he stopped me from drowning in my thoughts and reminded me about our purpose. He said, “We want to start a life together and achieve financial freedom. This wedding should not make it difficult for us to reach our goal”. Exactly, our wedding should enable us to pursue a life with Christ and a life of financial freedom.
A life where we are free from debt — where money works for us, not the other way around.
The Holy Spirit gave him the wisdom we needed to remind ourselves about the life we desire— financial freedom and creating a legacy of wealth for our future family. With this as our goal post, we have the clarity we need to create our dream wedding. It doesn’t revolve around a luxurious reception venue or 100+ guests. It involves our closest family and friends dancing and sharing intimate moments of love and joy that will last for a lifetime.
Knowing this, I’m ok with waiting. There is a bigger plan at work here. A plan for financial freedom. A plan for legacy building. A plan where my trust in God will have to expand exponentially to be at peace with the waiting. And that my friend is the bigger picture— pursuing an enriching and fruitful life where God is taking the lead.
