Dubbed the “wedding of the century,” the celebrity nuptial rite this week of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his journalist fiancee Lauren Sánchez has caused quite the stir — with the ceremony being moved to an isolated, less accessible part of Venice after security concerns were raised.
Protests erupted across the lagoon city in the past few weeks, with demonstrators expressing their anger over the billionaire tech founder’s aim to turn a popular central nightlife area of Venice into a private event for the couple’s star-studded wedding.
Overnight, demonstrators declared victory after it was announced the location of the wedding would be moved elsewhere. Regardless, the spectacle of the wedding, which is expected to take place between Thursday and Saturday, is making international headlines — perhaps for all the wrong reasons.
Bezos, the 61-year old executive chair of Amazon got engaged to ex-TV host and helicopter pilot Lauren Sánchez in 2023.
Four years prior, he’d divorced from his former wife, philanthropist Mackenzie Scott after a 25-year marriage. With an estimated fortune of US$228 billion (AUD$369 billion), Bezos is currently No. 4 on Forbes’ billionaires list, trailing Elon Musk, Larry Ellison and Mark Zuckerberg.
Cost
The full cost of the wedding festivities is unknown, though some figures say that it could be as much as €30 million (AUD $48 million) according to Luca Zaia, the regional president of the Veneto region.
According to the Italian news agency, ANSA, Bezos has vowed to donate €1 million each to three organisations in Venice committed to researching seas and climate change, including Corila, a research consortium dedicated to preserving the city’s fragile lagoon ecosystem, Venice International University (VIU) and the UNESCO office in Venice.
Location
While the exact wedding day and location of the ceremony remains unknown, the grand celebration is scheduled to unfold at a hall of the Arsenale, a historic site of the fortified 15th-century shipyard in the eastern Castello district which was once the Venetian Republic’s maritime might.
The original venue was Scuola Grande della Misericordia, a medieval former religious school in the Cannaregio district. The new location is surrounded by water and inaccessible once connecting bridges are raised.
Guests
Overnight, private aircrafts began arriving at the site, with guests ferried across the canals in dozens of water taxis. Up to 250 handpicked VIP guests from entertainment, politics and business are expected to touch down across Venice and nearby airports in Treviso and Verona over the next few days. Guests include Oprah Winfrey, Eva Longoria, Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner.
Protests
For the past few weeks, local residents and activists have been occupying spaces in the scenic city of gondolas to complain that the wedding would turn their city into a private amusement park for the rich.
Many believe that the celebration is a sign that their beautiful and fragile city is being grossly commodified by the ultra-rich, and that over-tourism has compromised the city’s sensitive infrastructure.
Tommaso Cacciari, the leader of the “No Space for Bezos” campaign, said, “The news that Bezos has run away from the Misericordia is a great victory for us.”
Cacciari’s group has announced more protests planned for Saturday on Venice’s canals, bridges and streets, vowing to make the event a “nightmare” for Bezos and his guests.
But Luca Zaia and Mayor Luigi Brugnaro have criticised the protests, saying that the dozens of private jets carrying guests to nearby airports could bring revenue of up to 48 million euros (AUD $77 million) to local businesses such as motor boats and gondolas that operate in the canals.
Earlier this week, global environmental lobby Greenpeace joined the protests in Venice. Activists from Greenpeace Italy and UK group “Everyone hates Elon” (Musk) unfolded a giant banner in central St Mark’s Square with a picture of Bezos laughing and a message that read: “If you can rent Venice for your wedding you can pay more tax.”
The activists were confronted by local police, who checked their identification documents before asking them to roll up the banner.
One protester told Reuters: “The problem is not the wedding, the problem is the system. We think that one big billionaire can’t rent a city for his pleasure.”
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