That was brought home to me in the last few days with 1) the marriage of Jacqueline-Ariadne Desmarais, the granddaughter of both billionaire Paul Desmarais and former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien to a Belgian princeling and 2) a feature this morning in The New York Times about a house for sale in Westmount at $3.2 million.The house I've passed many times: it looks like a truly lovely place, and I know there are several other multi-million dollar places around Mount Royal. But the wedding takes the cake!
It cost several million bucks too, it seems, and the guest list included Nicolar Sarkozy and at least one Bush, close personal friends of the grandparents. The reception took place on Ile Ste-Hélène, the site of Expo 67, and work was stopped on the bridge linking it to Montreal for the weekend, apparently to facilitate the comings and goings for the rich and famous.
One always wishes a young couple good times, but it would be nice if other couples starting their life together had even a fraction of what this one has.
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And there's this:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/homes/buying-homes/Former+Brian+Mulroney+house+sale/8939322/story.html
That beautiful house looks extremely familiar - I think I've actually taken tea there as a child, decades ago. The then owner of the place left the "well house" to a close friend of my family who was a highly-skilled nurse and who had worked as a private nurse for this elderly gentleman. She sold it when she retired and moved to the small town in the Rideau Lakes where she lives now; the sale of this precious dollhouse provided her a good nest egg.
A bit of research confirms this: http://sothebysrealty.ca/fr/property/quebec/montreal-real-estate/westmount/18680/ The tiny house the nurse I know lived in is the "Well House/Maison du puits" at 555, avenue Victoria. It had a retractible indoor staircase to the main bedroom, as in a boat.
Of course what I remember as a child about the elderly upper-crust gentleman was his two Siamese cats!
Needless to say, nurse came from a very peuple Franco-Irish background that bore no relationship to the élite.
That aside, I am much more shocked by the spending on the wedding.
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