Grand Opening Event: Crossley Orthodontics

WE ARE OPEN!!! Our family orthodontic office is open! I’m teary-eyed right now because I still simply can’t believe we’re here. Eleven+ years ago my sister set me up on a blind date with this guy who wanted to go to dental school, while I was applying to dental hygiene school. Our journey to get here is not how we would’ve mapped it out. I would’ve gone down a straight path without bruises and cliffs. I would have skipped the roundabout roads that led us down the “wrong” direction. I would have never planned heartache and hard times for my future. But I don’t have to look very far to see that every failure or change in our “perfect plan” allowed us the blessing to have clearer eyes to see a better path when we felt brave enough to leap. And we took a lot of crazy leaps! Here we were that night, celebrating this dream we hoped for, pictured, and imagined for more years than we realized. Cheers to you, Aaron! Congratulations for fighting for and building this sanctuary for you to do what you do best, and serve others with everything you’ve prepared for.

The Drama Before the Event!

Let’s just begin this with some of the crazy, dramatic back-story of the week leading up to this night. The Grand Opening was scheduled for a Friday night in August. The date had been chosen very carefully since the construction had been delayed sooo much throughout the process. We gave ourselves 10 days of a cushion from the most accurate finish date from the contractors. Well….. turns out that wasn’t nearly enough! See HERE FOR MY INSTAGRAM POST. A few days before opening and the counters weren’t in, among a gazillion other things. On Wednesday (remember Grand Opening has been scheduled, announced, and advertised all over for Friday night) there were 4 separate groups of construction teams in the office. It looked like a war zone in the space! That night after Aaron got off work in Flower Mound, he rented a big Uhaul and friends and family came out to help us move all of the furniture that we’d been collecting in our entry way at home to the office. Late into that night we put furniture together, hung TV’s, lights, etc… Oh, and Happy 11th Wedding Anniversary to us!! We celebrated by eating Whataburger at 11:30 pm, exhausted, gross, and in our jammies.

The next morning on Thursday was just as crazy with cleaning, organizing, putting things together. While all of this is happening, Aaron is also calling/texting/emailing the contractor, landlord, city of Frisco because the city had revoked the CO (certificate saying you can open to the public) we had gotten on Wednesday afternoon because the landlord had forgotten to submit documents! We kept moving forward, hoping for the best. Friday: game time! Still setting up and still no CO. Lots and lots of work and prayers later, the CO came an hour before people started showing up for the grand opening! Tender, tender mercy. And another mini-miracle: August had been one of the hottest and most dry months ever, and rain and extreme heat was in the forecast for Friday evening. About 30 minutes in to the event that night, the crazy wind died down, no hint of rain, and the temperature dropped quickly from high 90’s to a beautiful 80 degrees.

Side note: I don’t think we’ve ever been more stressed and overwhelmed in our entire lives as we were in the 2 weeks leading up to opening. And I don’t think we have ever had so many people reach out to offer help and support. We were too overwhelmed to say no! Deepest gratitude to all of you who helped and offered encouragement and support! We’ll never forget you helping when we felt like we were drowning. We could not have made this happen without you!! And a final thanks to our family that showed up! My 3 sister-in-laws and parents followed our kids the entire night so that Aaron and I could enjoy meeting and greeting everyone the entire night. To top it off, my SIL (that has 4 young kids of her own) took our 4 kids to their home to spend the night afterwards letting us stay as long as we needed. Saints!

The Party Begins!

For the Grand Opening Event, we wanted friends, family, and the entire community to check out our new space and enjoy a night out with their families. We brought out a face-painter, snow cone truck, and a bounce house. Kids in our neighborhood are obsessed with snow cones– we knew it’d be a hit!

I asked my dear friend Ann Marie who owns Playstreet Museum On Wheels. We met years ago when our twins were little babies. She and her husband Michael put their BIG HEARTS into renovating a 26 foot long retro Airstream stocked full of museum quality interactive exhibits, learning based toys, creative play structures, and arts/crafts materials. All of the kids LOVED it and played there for hours! We’ll definitely have Playstreet Museum On Wheels come out for future events.

It ain’t a party without balloons all over the place. We had Wow Balloons DFW come install a gorgeous cascading garland along the front sign of the office. They also did a DARLING display surrounding the “Crossley Orthodontics” red carpet backdrop inside the office. The outside balloon garland lasted a few days while the inside balloons lasted 4+ weeks!!

My girl Heather from Joyful Living reached out to me a few days before the event to double check that I had a photographer scheduled to shoot the event. Of course, I didn’t. Without skipping a beat, she reached out to Alison from Alison Woomer Photography and our event was penciled in! phew! Alison asked me a few details for the style and vibe of the Grand Opening. She arrived at the event (before me!) and started capturing the fun and candid moments (that you’re now seeing here on this post!). I’m SO grateful to Alison for dropping everything to help out a complete stranger on such short notice. A real gem!

AND, a special surprise from the talented Jinny, owner of Detour Doughnuts, who popped by with a bunch of her famous gourmet doughnuts. She’s one of the coolest boss babes I know and everyone inhaled her doughnuts within seconds! It was so sweet of her!!!

So if anyone is looking for a great orthodontist, I might know a good one 😉 7 years old is a GREAT age to bring your child in to have a free consultation and evaluation! A lot of little ones are ok to wait until they’re teens to get their braces, but sometimes they may need some extra help early on so they can grow and get in all those big permanent teeth! I’ve heard that some professionals can be pushy with recommending their treatment and I’m glad that Aaron doesn’t do that. He always tells me that he only recommends to others how he would treat our kids. For more details, visit his website HERE. He wrote it himself 😉

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