The JW Marriott Rosseau Resort and Spa

I know that it has been ages since I last managed – and, OK, bothered – to update, but, now, I am, hopefully, righting this wrong!

For the first summer in many, many years, we’ve been finding ourselves rather busy, which, after a number of years drifting through each season on nothing more than auto pilot, its been a smidgen challenging adjusting to our newly hectic pace! Adjusting we’ve been doing and doing amazingly well might I say – translation means we’re still on MMT – Methadone Maintenance Treatment – doing exactly what is expected of us! Also, making progress as we are now both down to a daily dose of 12mg each. How’s that for success?

Jim’s only sister, Steph, who is a decade younger than us and has lived in Toronto for just as long got married this summer, and it was this wedding that the entire family had been tirelessly working towards for the past year and a half. OK, maybe this is a slight exaggeration but, to be sure, it has been the only thing that has managed to interest my Mother-In-Law in any way these past eighteen months. Before I give you any additional info, Jim’s Mother is from the Philippines who has lived in Canada just shy of forty years plus, her only daughter just had her 37th birthday and until three weeks ago had never been married – never mind the subject of children or grand children cause so farm, still no sign of them!

Now in all her 35 years, Steph had never once said that her only dream left to fulfill was to have the most amazingly extravagant dream wedding with all of the requisite trimmings and then the same once again and then again. She’d always led us to believe she was more than satisfied being committed and part of a long term relationship without having to put too much stock in the institution of marriage itself. Seemed to be working out pretty damn fine from where we were sitting so we just assumed, if it ain’t broke…

Obviously something fundamental had shifted for her so we left good enough alone and celebrated enthusiastically with her and her then fiance, Chad. Never mind that it has always been the female’s prerogative to change her mind, n’est pas? Perhaps, she wanted to give her Mother her last dream before it was too late – Norma is now close to 79 years. To say that the simple bit of hope she held tightly onto that one day her only daughter would be wed in a fairy tale wedding to end all would be a massive understatement at best. I can not possibly convey adequately what I really mean when I attempt to share this story with you all as it was simply that massive.

Ironically , when Steph’s big day did finally arrive, it turned out to be almost anticlimactic in the end. Still loads and loads of fun! It also didn’t hurt that their parents are vulgarly wealthy so whatever a lavish fairy tale wedding would normally set you back was nary an issue. For real, expense was really no object! I’m sure if either Jim or I managed to get our hands on the final tally, we’d near have heart failure.

The wedding actually turned out to be quite a magnificent affair, and considering how much work was actually involved in putting the whole thing together, it went off without a hitch! Quite a feat considering it was a three day event by the time all was said and done. The venue chosen for this affair was certainly like nothing Jim nor I had ever seen. The entire wedding weekend from the Wedding Rehearsal and dinner on the Friday evening up to and including the day after Sunday brunch was all looked after by The JW Marriott Rosseau Resort and Spa which is located on Lake Rousseau just outside of a tiny, tiny town called Minett, which is just a little north of Gravenhurst right in the middle of the Muskokas.

We lived large for those few days that’s for sure! His Mom and Dad had the penthouse suite which included a couple of bedrooms plus three full sized bathrooms! There was a massive kitchen and dining room and living room as well. We all met for breakfast each day  – about thirty in total each morning – staggering in anywhere from 9am til about 11am. Room Service seemed to be non-stop as a lovely plate of Eggs Benedict seemed to magically appear each time someone new walked in their door! You can’t imagine how utterly massive their suite was – I think one of the caterers said it was just over 1700 sq feet! Hello! Our original room was a one bedroom suite with a separate living room, dining area and kitchen as we were originally supposed to share with Sara and Andre but as they didn’t end up coming up for the weekend cause of her broken collarbone, we switched with Jim’s aunt and two cousins as their room was smaller than ours and we didn’t need all that extra space for just the two of us. Otherwise his Aunt would have had to sleep on the sofa bed while the other two slept in the King sized bed. The room we got in exchange was more than just fine.

I’ve got more photos but I thought for now that I would start with these few as they show the Resort and Spa beautifully…

TO BE CONTINUED…