As Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his fiancée, journalist Lauren Sánchez, left the uber-luxurious hotel, Aman Venice, for the small island of San Giorgio Maggiore on the second day of their three-day gala, all eyes were on the bride-to-be, who waved happily to onlookers. Dressed in a short-sleeved, cream, fitted skirt suit, Sánchez looked resplendent as she boarded a motor boat.
The celebrations, estimated to cost around $50 million, began on Thursday evening in the medieval church of Madonna dell'Orto, situated in the central district of Cannaregio. “The magical place”, as Bezos and Sánchez called it, hosts masterpieces by 16th-century painter Tintoretto.
The high-security wedding celebrations will culminate on Saturday with a party in a former medieval shipyard where media sources say Lady Gaga and Elton John will perform.
Sánchez, 55, and Bezos, 61, will exchange rings accompanied by singing from Matteo Bocelli, son of Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli. However, there are reports that the ceremony will have no legal status under Italian law.
Also Read: Venice abuzz as Bezos's wedding draws global glitterati
As dozens of stars descended to Venice, including Bill Gates, Leonardo DiCaprio, Orlando Bloom, Tom Brady, the queen of Jordan, Oprah Winfrey, the Kardashian family, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner and Domenico Dolce from Dolce & Gabbana, it was also impossible to miss protests by local activists.
Mayor Luigi Brugnaro, however, said they were “happy and honoured to welcome Jeff Bezos and his consort Lauren Sánchez," and sent the bride white roses, and the groom, a maxi-bottle of Amarone luxury red wine.
Bezos, No. 4 on Forbes' global billionaires list, and Sánchez asked for "no gifts", instead pledging charity donations worth 3 million euros ($3.5 million) for three Venetian institutions.
Bezos, Amazon's executive chair, got engaged to Sánchez in 2023, four years after the collapse of his 25-year marriage to MacKenzie Scott.
Who is Lauren Sánchez?
Sánchez may have gained fame for her A-list romance with Bezos, but curiosity is growing about the mother-of-three as she gets ready walk down the aisle.
A former award-winning TV journalist, Sánchez is a licensed pilot, the owner of an aviation company and a recently-turned author.
She was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1969, where she studied acting and speech after graduating high school. She then moved to California, where Sánchez studied communications at the University of Southern California.
As a broadcast journalist, she started as a desk assistant at KCOP-TV in Los Angeles. She later worked as a reporter for an entertainment programme called, Extra, and later held positions at Fox Sports Net.
It was during her tenure at Fox that Sánchez earned an Emmy nomination for her work as an anchor and correspondent on the newsmagazine series, ‘Goin’Deep’. She and her KCOP-TV team won an Emmy Award in 1999 after returning to host ‘UPN News 13’.
She also worked as a TV host later.
When she was 40, Sánchez learned to fly, possibly inspired by her father, who owns an aviation business. In 2016, she founded Black Ops Aviation, the first female-owned aerial film and production company.
In 2024, Sánchez turned author with the children’s book, ‘The Fly Who Flew to Space’, a story about a fly named Flynn with aspirations to be an astronaut.
Sánchez shares a 24-year-old son, Nikko Gonzalez, with former NFL tight end, Tony Gonzalez, whom she dated before marrying entertainment executive Patrick Whitesell in 2005. She has two children with Whitesell, son, Evan, 19, and daughter, Ella, 17.
Sánchez was in the process of divorcing her husband in 2019 when she met Bezos, who had finalised divorce from Scott that year.
The couple became engaged in 2023 when Bezos popped the question to Sánchez on his yacht during a trip to the Cannes Film Festival.
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