Wedding mystery surfaces as Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez arrive in Venice
The happy couple and celebrities from the star-studded guest list jetted to the city of love for their three-day wedding celebration as protests against the Amazon tycoon continued and town hall officials revealed he had not registered to marry there.
Jeff Bezos arrived in Venice yesterday (Wednesday) for his three-day wedding celebration as protests against the Amazon tycoon continued and town hall officials revealed he had not registered to marry in the city.
Bezos, 61, and his bride-to-be, the journalist Lauren Sanchez, 55, waved from a water taxi when they arrived at Aman Venice hotel overlooking the Grand Canal. A canopy was erected on a floating dock to allow guests to disembark out of sight of photographers.
Luxury yachts and an estimated 95 private jets are bringing in the couple’s 200 guests – reportedly including Bill Gates, Leonardo DiCaprio and Sir Mick Jagger – to the wedding, which is said to have cost about $US50m ($77m).
President Trump’s daughter Ivanka, her husband, Jared Kushner, and their three children arrived on Tuesday, prompting authorities to beef up security, helped by a €13,500 contribution from Bezos for police overtime, a town hall source told The Times.
Yesterday (Wednesday), wedding staff unloaded air-conditioning units and lanterns at the cloister of the former monastery of Madonna dell’Orto in the Cannaregio district, which will host an early evening gathering for guests today (Thursday) as the festivities get under way.
The cloister stands next to the monastery’s church, which houses works by the 16th-century Venetian artist Tintoretto and his tomb.
Police said surrounding streets would be closed to keep away protesters who have already forced organisers to move a party planned for Saturday from a hall in the centre of Venice to the Arsenale – Venice’s former docks, which are surrounded by a fortified wall.
City officials said that, despite reports Bezos and Sanchez would tie the knot in Venice, they have not made an official request to wed in the city, which is required under Italian law.
“I can totally rule out that they will have a civil ceremony in Venice under Italian law,” the official said.
When the actor George Clooney and the barrister Amal Alamuddin married in Venice in 2014, the ceremony was officiated at Venice town hall.
Bezos’s decision not to follow suit will fuel speculation that he and Sanchez have already wed in a private ceremony in the US.
Protests against the event have continued, with activists from Extinction Rebellion scaling a crane on Tuesday to unfurl a banner stating “Tax the rich to give back to the planet”.
After descending from the crane, which is outside the Hotel Danieli where guests are staying, the activists were taken away by police.
Yesterday (Wednesday), protesters floated a mannequin of Bezos down the Grand Canal clutching fake dollar bills.
In an attempt to ensure privacy for Bezos and his guests at their party tomorrow (Friday) at the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, city authorities extended Venice’s ban on drone flights to cover the island.
A Venice water taxi driver told The Times that about 30 drivers hired to carry guests from party to party had been handed strips of tinted, adhesive plastic. “It’s to put on the windows of the water taxis to stop prying eyes,” he said.
The Times
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