Merchant in Venice: Glamor, buzz, furor mark Bezos wedding
VENICE, Italy—The sky itself was no limit for billionaire Jeff Bezos and fiancée Lauren Sanchez, who both have traveled into space.
The couple held their wedding ceremony on Friday night, and Sanchez—who now identified herself on Instagram as Lauren Sanchez Bezos—posted a photo of herself beaming in a white, classic mermaid-line gown as she stood alongside the world’s fourth-richest man.
The dress featured Dolce & Gabbana’s signature Italian lace. A traditional tulle-and-lace veil completed her look.
“Not just a gown, a piece of poetry,” Sanchez Bezos wrote on Instagram.
Wedding fever
Bezos, former CEO of e-commerce giant Amazon, was engaged to Sanchez in 2023, four years after the end of his 25-year marriage to Amazon cofounder MacKenzie Scott.
Expectations were about as high ahead of the wedding. One of the world’s most enchanting cities as backdrop? Check.
Star-studded guest list and tabloid buzz? Of course.
Local flavor? You bet.
The wedding gala’s second day of events was spread across the Italian lagoon city, as dozens of private jets flocked to Venice’s airport and yachts pulled into the city’s famed waterways.
The heady hoopla recalled the 2014 wedding in Venice of actor George Clooney and human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin, when adoring crowds lined the canals and hundreds of well-wishers gathered outside City Hall.
But the Bezos-Sanchez nuptials also became a lightning rod for small yet colorful protests.
Yet any attempt to dampen the wedding fever had not materialized by Friday.
Instead, the glitterati were partying—celebrities, influencers and business leaders converging to revel in the extravagance—while the paparazzi jostled for glimpses of the gilded gala.
Logistics, costs
Venice is famed for its network of canals. But water transport of everything from bouquets to guests makes the city among the world’s most challenging for organizing a party, said CEO Jack Ezon of Embark Beyond, a luxury travel advisory and destination event service.
“It’s a very tight-knit community, everyone there knows everyone, and you need to work with the right people,” he said. “There’s very tight control, especially on movement there with boats.”
Ezon said the cost at least triples, compared with staging the same soiree in Rome or Florence.
Veneto Region Gov. Luca Zaia was the first to give an estimated tally for the Bezos-Sanchez bash—between 40 million and 48 million euros, or up to $56 million.
The jaw-dropping figure is over 1,000 times the $36,000 average cost of weddings among American couples, according to wedding-planning website Zola.
“How do you spend $40 million on a three- or four-day event?” Ezon said. ”You could bring headliners, A-list performers, great DJs from anywhere in the world.” Or expand the celebration to local landmarks.
Guests, paparazzi
“You could spend $2 million on an incredible glass tent that’s only there for 10 hours, but it takes a month to build,” he said.
Wearing a silk scarf on her head as she emerged from her hotel on Friday afternoon, Sanchez blew a kiss to spectators before stepping into a water taxi that brought her to San Giorgio island, where the couple held their ceremony. Bezos followed two hours later.
Vogue magazine, which had exclusive access to the couple, reported that the gown Sanchez wore took 900 hours to complete.
Inspired by actress Sophia Loren’s wedding dress in the 1958 film “Houseboat,” it featured a high-necked, hand-appliqued lace and 180 silk chiffon-covered priest buttons.
The illustrious guests came in a line of water taxis—Oprah Winfrey, Kim Kardashian, Ivanka Trump, Tom Brady, Bill Gates, Queen Rania of Jordan, Leonardo DiCaprio and more.
Paparazzi trailed on their own boats, trying to capture them all on camera.
Local media earlier reported a reception scheduled on Saturday at the Arsenale, a former naval base best known as a primary venue for the Venice Biennale.
‘No Space’
Meanwhile, protesters of the movement called “No Space for Bezos”—a play on words referring to his space exploration company Blue Origin—criticized the event as a decadent show of wealth.
They said this was tourism taking precedence over residents’ needs such as affordable housing and essential services.
“Venice is not just a pretty picture, a pretty postcard to please the needs and wants of the elite or of mass tourists. It is a living city, made of people who want to actually live there,” Stella Faye, a university researcher, said on Friday.
About a dozen groups, including housing advocates, anticruise ship campaigners and campus organizations have joined the protests.
Greenpeace unfurled a banner at iconic St. Mark’s Square in San Giorgio denouncing Bezos for paying insufficient taxes.
Economic boost
Bezos—who has a net worth of $234 billion, according to Forbes—usually avoids the limelight, delegating announcements and business updates to his executives.
But amid the sudden handwringing over the prospect he may take over any of Venice’s tourist hot spots, wedding coordinator Lanza & Baucina was prompted to issue a rare statement calling the rumors false.
The clarification followed an announcement last week by Corila—the environmental research group which seeks protection of the city’s lagoon system—that Bezos’ Earth Fund was supporting its work with an “important donation.”
Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnano and other authorities have dismissed the outcry over Bezos, saying it ignores the visibility and economic boost his wedding has brought.
“There will be photos everywhere, social media will go wild over the bride’s dress, over the ceremony,” Italian Tourism Minister Daniela Santanchè told AP.
“In fact, because they will spend a lot of money, they will enrich Venice—our shopkeepers, artisans, restaurateurs, hotels. So it’s a great opportunity both for spending and for promoting Italy to the world.”
