Billionaire nuptials have a way of sucking up oxygen and air time. Last summer, we were transfixed by the $600 million USD Ambani wedding in Mumbai; this time it’s the Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez wedding about to rock Venice.
Bezos, the 61-year-old Amazon boss who is currently the world’s fourth richest person is set to wed Sanchez, 55, a former TV journalist, pilot and newbie astronaut who recently helmed a celebrity girl gang trip to space in a Bezos-owned Blue Origin rocket.
The wedding festivities are expected to begin Thursday and culminate on Saturday, although details of the ceremony itself have been kept under wraps.
The impending events have been met with both fierce online backlash for the bloated budget, a rumoured $10 million, and promise of garish displays of wealth, and in-person protests by Venetians over the impact on the local area, who forced the couple to move their original wedding location by threatening to block the iconic canals with blow-up crocodiles.
Nota bene: Venice is sinking on its wooden pylons, due to climate change and over-tourism, which makes this convergence of private jet-owning celebrities and business titans feel like Nero fiddling while Rome burns.
But shameless is as shameless does, and the soon-to-be Bezoses are all about peacocking. Hence the first glimpses we got of the couple in the lead-up to the wedding: They were clad in swimwear and covered in bubbles from a foam party last Sunday aboard Bezos’ $500 million USD yacht “Koru,” reportedly held to celebrate Sanchez’s son’s birthday.
The megayacht is now moored near the historic and imperilled lagoon, and Bezos and Sanchez were snapped disembarking at the Aman hotel on Wednesday.
Here is everything to know about this billionaire wedding so far, from the pre-nup to the guest list to the dresses (yes, plural).
The couple
Bezos and Sanchez met in 2016 when they were introduced by her former husband, Patrick Whitesell, a Hollywood agent with whom she had two of her three children. At the time, Bezos was married to his first wife, MacKenzie Bezos (now Scott), mother of his four children.
In 2019, the day Bezos’s divorce was announced, a rep confirmed he had been spending time with Sanchez, who had been hired in 2018 to film content for Blue Origin. That’s the official version of events: The National Enquirer tabloid followed Bezos and Sanchez around the world’s luxury playgrounds prior to the divorce announcement, and published explicit texts between the couple from circa 2018. That is the source of the phrase “alive girl,” a fond term Bezos used for Sanchez, which you often see referenced to this day.
The couple moved in together in 2019, and proceeded to travel the world in extravagant and well-publicized style. In May of 2023, Bezos presented Sanchez with an estimated 30 carat, cushion-cut solitaire, rare pink diamond engagement ring in the South of France. The couple celebrated with two celebrity-filled engagement parties: one, held aboard Koru, one at the home of Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg, attended by the likes of Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey and Leonardo DiCaprio. The bride has vowed to take Bezos’ name.
The prenup
High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs) commonly sign prenups to protect their assets in the event of divorce, however it is not thought that Bezos and his first wife, Scott, had one. Bezos was worth an estimated $160 billion USD when he and Scott divorced after a quarter century of marriage. In the split, she received 25 per cent of their mutual Amazon stock (notably, she was the first Amazon employee, a company formed a year after their 1993 marriage). Scott, an efficient philanthropist, has since given away $19 million USD of the $38 billion settlement in just five years.
Now, Bezos is worth $234 billion USD, according to the regularly updated Bloomberg billionaire’s list. He and Sanchez are believed to have signed a prenup to determine the separation of assets and spousal support should their marriage end. Bezos owns a primary residence in Miami plus property in California, Texas, Washington State, Washington DC and Hawaii, and owning properties in so many different jurisdictions would make such a prenup document an unwieldy one.
The guest list
Some 90 private jets are scheduled to arrive in Venice imminently, according to The Guardian, and megayachts have been cruising into the area. Ivanka Trump and family have already been seen in Venice, a reunion of sorts from Bezos and Sanchez’s Trump inauguration appearance in Washington. Queen Rania of Jordan has also been snapped canalside, as have Oprah Winfrey, Usher, and football star Tom Brady.
Sanchez’s bachelorette party in Paris included reality royalty Kim Kardashian and Kris Jenner, who have both been seen in Venice along with sister Khloé. Sanchez’s space-mate Katy Perry was at the bachelorette but will reportedly not be attending; her husband Orlando Bloom is said to be attending solo amid reports of their split.
Canadian-born Hollywood talent agent Michael Kives and his wife Lydia Kives have arrived in Venice—Perry performed at their wedding in Palm Springs. Also in Venice are fashion designer Diane Von Furstenberg and her billionaire businessman husband Barry Diller, and talent agent Ari Emanuel and his fashion designer wife Sarah Staudinger. It has been announced that Mateo Bocelli, the son of Andrea, will perform at the ceremony.
People reports that Leonardo DiCaprio and his model girlfriend Vittoria Ceretti will attend, and rumour has it that Bill Gates, Mick Jagger and Elton John may also be there.
The dress
No less than Vogue editrix Anna Wintour is rumoured to have assisted the bride with fashion advice for her big day; Wintour helped shepherd Sanchez through her first Met Gala in 2024, where she wore an Oscar de la Renta gown.
Meanwhile, The Daily Mail this week revealed the identities of Sanchez’s “glam squad” — fashion speak for hair and makeup and styling team — a feat of reporting achieved by magnifying the clipboard of a Sanchez assistant. The names included a Dolce & Gabbana representative, leading to speculation that the Italian fashion house may be making the wedding dress.
Of course, the current vogue at high-profile, social-media-content-hungry weddings is for the bride to have multiple costume changes, for not just the ceremony and the reception, but for ancillary events and rehearsals.
Don’t expect demure, quiet-luxury attire from this second-time bride in her 50s. We know that Sanchez is not likely to shy away from either the spotlight or showing some skin, nor wearing white; she drew eyeballs for her cleavage-displaying outfit at Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration.
The backlash
Venice’s canals and lagoons are fragile, and the city is home to only 55,000 residents who absorb some 30 million visitors a year. Locals have been strident about not wanting this celebrity circus in town, as more publicity means more cruise ships and more tourists flocking to historic sites. The onslaught challenges the failing infrastructure of a city designed centuries ago and built on wooden piles driven into the marsh below.
Protesters have hung protest signs around the city to make their opinions on the billionaire nuptials clear. Greenpeace unfurled a massive banner in the middle of St. Mark’s Square that read “If you can rent Venice for your wedding you can pay more tax,” with a photo of Bezos laughing, his head shining in the Italian sun.
As a result, the Bezos wedding was apparently moved from the Scuola Grande Della Misericordia, a religious school dating to the medieval period and located in a popular district, to a more isolated location, the Arsenale, a former shipyard that has been used as an exhibition space for the Venice Biennale art fair.
The invitations
The word is that just 200 guests were invited. The (apparent, and surprisingly simply designed) wedding invitation was leaked and has been circulating online, and notably it specifies no gifts — probably a relief to the guests of people who already have everything and can buy anything they could ever want. In what seems like a PR move to appease protesters, the invitation says donations are being made on behalf of the guests to three local charities: UNESCO heritage, a charity focused on the lagoon habitat, and sustainability research at Venice International University. The governor of Veneto region, Luca Zaia, announced that Bezos donations to the lagoon total $1 million euros.
Even so, the next few days will no doubt be filled with decadent images of billionaires partying. These grotesque displays of wealth — the Ambani wedding was literally held next to a slum — are a stark reminder of how the systemic channelling of wealth from the many to the very, very few reaches its natural conclusion. The Bezos nuptials can be seen as a tipping point not just for Venetians, but for anyone who goes to bed worrying about the state of the world. An outcry about the excesses of the weekend may be the only way to reach a man who has his hand in all of our wallets.
