VENICE, Italy - The superyachts are moored up, the private jets have touched down and the celebrities, athletes and magnate remain in Venice for one of the most talked-about wedding events of the year - that of billionaire Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez.
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Oprah Winfrey, Kim and Khloe Kardashian, Tom Brady, Bill Gates and President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner are in the “city of love,” along with of Jordan and Leonardo Di Caprio, for the 3 days of extravagant celebrations that began Thursday with a star-studded gala.

Bezos, the world’s fourth-richest guy, and Sanchez beamed and waved at members of the public as they stepped out onto a water taxi ahead of the occasion at the cloisters behind the city’s Chiesa della Madonna dell’Orto church. Nearby, a boat complete of paparazzi excitedly snapped photos of the pair before they entered the remote venue.

The primary wedding celebration will be held Saturday in one of the halls of the Arsenale, a big previous medieval shipyard developed into an art area in the eastern Castello district.

“We are utilized to handling really crucial occasions,” Deputy Venice Mayor Simone Venturini told NBC News on Wednesday as the city got ready for the wedding event, adding that the city previously hosted the late Pope Francis and world leaders attending the G7 and G20 summits.

In an earlier interview, he likewise remembered that the city had actually managed star George Clooney and human rights attorney Amal Alamuddin’s 2014 wedding, as crowds lined the canals and numerous well-wishers gathered outside Municipal government.

Unlike the Clooney wedding however, he stated, Bezos’ wedding event would not be legal under Italian law because it required “to be performed in an official location like the Town hall.” Neither Bezos nor Sanchez, a former TV news anchor, had actually requested this, he said.

As an outcome, some have actually hypothesized that the couple have actually already legally wed in the United States.

Not everyone in the city is as inviting as Venturini. In current weeks, there have actually been demonstrations about the Amazon founder’s presence in the city, with those who object showing the banner “No Space for Bezos,” a play on words referring to his space exploration business, Blue Origin.

Around a dozen Venetian companies consisting of anti-cruise ship campaigners and real estate advocates, have actually been joined by bigger activist groups like Greenpeace, which unfurled a giant tarpaulin in the city’s popular St. Mark’s Square on Monday, with a photo of a smiling Bezos beneath the words: “If you can lease Venice for your wedding event you can pay more taxes.”

While authorities rapidly eliminated the banner, which Greenpeace stated was roughly 4,300 square feet in size, activists have also unfurled a banner on Venice’s popular Rialto bridge and drifted a Bezos-inspired mannequin, its hands clenching phony cash, down one of the city’s canals on top of an Amazon shipment box.

Bezos, who according to Forbes has a net worth of $231 billion, stepped down as Amazon CEO in 2021, saying he wanted to invest more time on other tasks, including his Blue Origin space innovation company, The Washington Post and philanthropic efforts.

Two years previously, Bezos, who usually shies away from the limelight, announced he was separating his first partner, Mackenzie Scott, days before the National Enquirer published a story about his affair with Sanchez. On the day Bezos’ divorce was completed, Sanchez filed for her own divorce from media executive Patrick Whitesell.

Venturini stated the protesters had actually seen “a great deal of paparazzi and a great deal of presence and attention from the world wide network and they stated, ‘Let’s exploit this attention.’”
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He added that Bezos had made numerous contributions to organizations that worked to protect the Venetian lagoon system and heritage sites.

In the meantime, it’s company as typical in this city that gets around 30 million visitors every year, according to visit guide Igor Scomparin. He said Sunday that it was “difficult” to keep things relocating a city that is only two times the size of New York’s Central Park.