Party, protests to highlight Bezos wedding in Venice
VENICE—Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and journalist Lauren Sanchez began three days of lavish wedding celebrations on Thursday with tight security shielding their VIP guests from protesters.
Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey and the Queen of Jordan were among the recent arrivals, joining some 250 A-listers from show business, politics and finance in what has been widely dubbed the “wedding of the century”—an event estimated at $50 million.
US President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner showed up on Tuesday, using the extra time for sightseeing and shopping.
Bezos, 61, and Sanchez, 55, landed in Venice via helicopter on Wednesday and took up residence at the Aman Hotel, where rooms with a view of the Grand Canal go for at least 4,000 euros ($4,686) a night.
They are set to exchange vows on Friday on the small island of San Giorgio, opposite iconic St Mark’s Square.
Venice has hosted scores of VIP weddings. Hollywood actor George Clooney and human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin tied the knot there in 2014 amid a protest by government workers.
This time, the Bezos-Sanchez nuptials have stirred a debate about its impact on one of the world’s most beautiful cities, with protesters seeing it as an example of Venice being gift-wrapped for ultra-rich outsiders.
‘Day-trippers’
But as the “No Space for Bezos” movement plans further demonstrations, not all locals are hostile.
Politicians, hoteliers and other residents say these high-end events are a better way to support the local economy rather than the multitudes of low-spending “day-trippers”—visitors who pass by the city without spending the night there.
Day-trippers are charged a “Venice access fee” which took effect last year amid efforts by city authorities to discourage overtourism.
Defending the celebrity wedding, local tour leader Mattia Brandi said “If you look at what concretely the Bezos wedding brings for the good of Venice, there are only advantages and no disadvantages.”
“They (the protesters) don’t realize they are the ones disrupting the quiet life of the city,” he said.
‘The 1%’
On Thursday, the city council banned pedestrians and water traffic until midnight to provide security and seclusion for the partygoers as they gathered at the Madonna dell’Orto—the medieval church in the central district of Cannaregio that hosts masterpieces by 16th-century painter Tintoretto.
But earlier that day, an activist managed to climb one of the poles at St Mark’s Square, unfurling a banner that read “The 1% ruins the world.”
Bezos, executive chair of e-commerce giant Amazon and No. 4 on the Forbes billionaires list, became engaged to Sanchez in 2023, four years after the end of his 25-year marriage to Amazon cofounder MacKenzie Scott.
The main wedding bash on Saturday will be held at one of the halls of the Arsenale, a vast former medieval shipyard turned into an art space in the eastern Castello district.
