Bliss
60 Sumach St. (at Queen St. E.), 416-323-3353
Wedding coordinator Tara O’Grady is known for her unflaggingly good taste. Bliss’s staff of four consult from their downtown studio, pulling off six-tent high-society extravaganzas, small out-of-town gatherings in Niagara-on-the-Lake and chic urban restaurant weddings at places like Canoe. Clients’ budgets range from $50,000 to $250,000. Wedding day service from $2,500. Full service from $5,000. By appointment.
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Wedding Guide: the best Toronto wedding planners
Year in Review: the five best getaways from Cottage of the Week
Whether you’re in the market for a vacation property or not, ogling other people’s places (and judging other people’s decor) is rollicking good fun. That’s why we spend the summer hunting down the most beautiful, most luxurious, most over-the-top cottages for sale and posting full photo tours for anybody stuck in the city. Here, our five favourite cottages from the past 12 months.
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Cottage of the Week: $975,000 for a lakefront cabin with two kitchens, two living rooms and one massive loft
ADDRESS: PT LT 3 Lindhill Island
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Kahshe Lake, about 15 kilometres southeast of Gravenhurst, Ontario
AGENTS: Maggie Tomlinson, Chestnut Park Real Estate Ltd., Brokerage, Port Carling, and David Reid, Enjoy Muskoka Realty Inc., Brokerage, Gravenhurst
PRICE: $975,000
THE PLACE: A sprawling cottage on the tip of Lindhill Island, in Kahshe Lake, just south of Gravenhurst. The property has been in the same family since the early 1960s; in 2007, they built a two-storey addition with cathedral ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows, an upgraded kitchen and a sleeping loft.
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Cottage of the Week: $2.7 million for a Georgian Bay getaway with a pirate ship
ADDRESS: 168 Old Mill Road
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Georgian Bay
AGENT: Bob Emmett and Fred Shaw, Royal LePage Four Seasons Real Estate Centre, Brokerage
PRICE: $2,650,000
THE PLACE: A unique (how many homes greet you with a totem pole at the front door?) and grandiose (check out the chandelier in the bathroom) cottage that still maintains a home-y feel, thanks to wide-plank wood floors, reclaimed wood-beam ceilings and that old cottage staple, a moose head on the wall.
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Cottage of the Week: $1.6 million for a bayfront property that’s classic Muskoka
ADDRESS: 1338 East Bay Road, Torrance
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Lake Muskoka
AGENT: Iris and James Gardiner, Chestnut Park Real Estate Limited, Brokerage
PRICE: $1,575,000
THE PLACE: A six-bedroom, five-bathroom cottage on a sheltered bay in Lake Muskoka.
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Into the (Not So) Wild: our look at the summer camps of Toronto’s rich and famous
A sojourn to Northern Ontario used to mean grabbing a sleeping bag and a can of beans and roughing it in the woods, all in the name of character building. Today, high-end camps offer perks that sound like something out of a brochure for a four-star resort. Here, a glimpse at life as a modern-day camp kid.
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Cottage of the Week: $12 million for a manicured 1.6-acre island in Muskoka
ADDRESS: St. Helen’s Island
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Muskoka Lakes
AGENT: Richard Scully, Harvey Kalles Real Estate Ltd., Brokerage
PRICE: $12,000,000
THE PLACE: A 1.6-acre island on Muskoka’s Five Mile Bay with a main cottage, a two-bedroom guest cottage and a boathouse with yet more accommodation.
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Introducing: Hidden Kitchen, a dinner series brought to you by a ghost chef, an ex-chef, a guest chef and a craft brewery
Trying to keep up with the many pop-up food events in Toronto is a challenge, what with their unpredictable locations and irregular timing. And even if the location remains a mystery until the day of the event, Hidden Kitchen, a new collaboration between chef Matt Kantor (Secret Pickle, Ghost Chef), Swallow’s Ivy Knight (a former chef) and Muskoka Brewery, is at least blessed with a predictable schedule. The series takes places on the last Thursday of each month at non-traditional (yet TTC accessible) venues, and has space for 40 diners. It always starts at 7 p.m. and, unsurprisingly, is reliably stocked with a bounty of beer.
Cottage of the Week: $13.9 million for a private island on Lake Muskoka

ADDRESS: Old Woman Island, Lake Muskoka
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Muskoka Lakes
AGENT: Diane McKee, Chestnut Park Real Estate Limited, Brokerage
PRICE: $13,900,000
THE PLACE: Old Woman Island, a nearly 16-acre island in the middle of Lake Muskoka that has six beaches and seven matching buildings.
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A Marriott resort in cottage country is forcing some of its staff to give nearly half their gratuities to the hotel—if they don’t, they’ll be fired—which we have to say, seems a little heavy-handed. In a three-page letter obtained by the Toronto Star, Rosseau Muskoka general manager Tony Tamburro lays out the new policy: customers will be charged a 20 per cent gratuity, of which 8.75 percentage points will go to the hotel “to efficiently manage our costs and to remain competitive within the industry.” Forced tip-outs aren’t new (though the cut taken by management in this case seems especially high), but they have been in the limelight this month after Dalton McGuinty showed some enthusiasm for a bill to outlaw the practice. Until such legislation prevents Rosseau from taking a cut, we wonder if spa-frequenting folk will be taking their $450 “Rock, Wind & Water for Two” packages elsewhere. [Toronto Star]


Bar Volo, the Yonge Street den for beer geeks, seems perpetually restless. It was 
The third annual
With all the talk of condo bubbles, over-the-top bidding wars and failed flips, wading into Toronto’s housing market requires equal parts bravery and real estate savvy. To help with the latter, we decided to dish when the properties we profile in our

