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1 Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez's Wedding in Venice Begins with Celebrities And Protesters

VENICE, Italy - The superyachts are moored up, the private jets have actually touched down and the celebs, athletes and business leaders are in Venice for among the most talked-about wedding events of the year - that of billionaire Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez.

Oprah Winfrey, Kim and Khloe Kardashian, Tom Brady, Bill Gates and President Donald Trump's child Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner remain in the "city of love," along with Queen Rania of Jordan and Leonardo Di Caprio, for the three days of lavish events that began Thursday with a star-studded gala.
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Bezos, the world's fourth-richest guy, and Sanchez beamed and waved at members of the general public as they marched 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 went into the secluded location.

The main wedding event bash will be held Saturday in one of the halls of the Arsenale, a large former medieval shipyard developed into an art area in the eastern Castello district.

"We are utilized to handling extremely important occasions," Deputy Venice Mayor Simone Venturini informed NBC News on Wednesday as the city tailored up for the wedding, including that the city formerly hosted the late Pope Francis and world leaders going to the G7 and G20 tops.

In an earlier interview, he also remembered that the city had managed actor George Clooney and human rights attorney Amal Alamuddin's 2014 wedding, as crowds lined the canals and hundreds of well-wishers gathered outside Town hall.

Unlike the Clooney wedding nevertheless, he stated, Bezos' wedding event would not be legal under Italian law because it required "to be performed in a main location like the Municipal government." Neither Bezos nor Sanchez, a former TV news anchor, had requested this, he said.

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

Not everyone in the city is as inviting as Venturini. In recent weeks, there have been demonstrations about the Amazon creator's presence in the city, with those who object showing the banner "No Space for Bezos," a play on words referring to his area expedition company, Blue Origin.

Around a dozen Venetian organizations consisting of anti-cruise ship advocates and real estate supporters, have actually been joined by larger activist groups like Greenpeace, which unfurled a giant tarp in the city's famous St. Mark's Square on Monday, with a photo of a smiling Bezos underneath the words: "If you can rent Venice for your wedding you can pay more taxes."

While police quickly got rid of the banner, which Greenpeace said was approximately 4,300 square feet in size, activists have also unfurled a banner on Venice's well-known Rialto bridge and floated a Bezos-inspired mannequin, its hands clenching phony money, down among 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, stating he wished to spend more time on other projects, including his Blue Origin space innovation company, The Washington Post and philanthropic initiatives.

Two years earlier, Bezos, who typically avoids the limelight, announced he was divorcing his first better half, Mackenzie Scott, days before the National Enquirer released a story about his affair with . On the day Bezos' divorce was finalized, Sanchez applied for her own divorce from media executive Patrick Whitesell.

Venturini stated the protesters had seen "a great deal of paparazzi and a great deal of visibility and attention from the world wide network and they stated, 'Let's exploit this attention.'"

He added that Bezos had actually made numerous contributions to organizations that worked to safeguard the Venetian lagoon system and heritage sites.

In the meantime, it's organization as typical in this city that gets roughly 30 million visitors every year, according to explore guide Igor Scomparin. He stated Sunday that it was "challenging" to keep things moving in a city that is just twice the size of New York's Central Park.
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