06/13/2026
Today, for the first time since we opened DEC, I am home with my daughter while my team works an event without me. And we’re not double booked.
Let that sink in for a second. Because it’s taking me a minute too.
When you start a business, nobody tells you what you’re really signing up for. The missed bedtimes. The dinners you’re half-present for because your mind is still on an inquiry you haven’t answered. The weekends that disappear. The moments you watch from your phone while you’re in a venue somewhere, adjusting a setting for the hundredth time, hoping this time it’s finally right.
You do it because you love it. But loving something doesn’t make the sacrifice hurt less.
There were nights I questioned everything. Moments I wondered if the grind would ever ease up. If I’d ever feel like I had actually built something. Or if I’d just built a job I couldn’t clock out of.
But you keep going. You build the processes. You break them and rebuild them. You find the right people. People who care, who show up, who treat your couples like their own. You invest in them. You invest in the systems. You do the unglamorous work over and over until it stops feeling unglamorous and starts feeling like a foundation.
And then, one day, without realizing it, you’ve built something that can breathe without you.
Today, my team is there. My couples are taken care of. Every detail has been walked through, every expectation set. They are in the best hands.
And I am at the lake. With my daughter. Watching her laugh. Being present in a way I haven’t always been able to be.
It’s bittersweet. Because I love what I do and part of me wishes I was there too. But a bigger part of me knows this is exactly what I was working toward all along.
Freedom isn’t given. It’s built. Slowly, painfully, beautifully. 🖤