By Sara Rossi and Gabriele Pileri
VENICE -Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and journalist Lauren Sanchez started three days of lavish marriage ceremony celebrations in Venice on Thursday with tight safety shielding their VIP visitors from protesters.
Invoice Gates, Orlando Bloom and the Queen of Jordan have been among the many newest arrivals, becoming a member of Oprah Winfrey, Kris Jenner and Kim and Khloe Kardashian.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner, who confirmed up on Tuesday, have used the additional time for sightseeing and buying.
Some 200-250 A-listers from present enterprise, politics and finance are anticipated to participate in what has been broadly dubbed “marriage ceremony of the century”, estimated to value round $50 million.
The occasion has stirred a debate about its affect on one of many world’s most stunning cities, with protesters seeing it for instance of Venice being gift-wrapped for ultra-rich outsiders, however others having fun with the spectacle and the spending.
An activist climbed one of many poles in the primary St Mark’s Sq. on Thursday, unfurling a banner with the phrases “The 1% ruins the world” to protest in opposition to the presence of the billionaire Bezos in Venice.
Company have been gathering on Thursday night within the cloisters of Madonna dell’Orto, a medieval church within the central district of Cannaregio that hosts masterpieces by sixteenth century painter Tintoretto.
Town council banned pedestrians and water visitors from the world from 4.30 p.m. till midnight, to offer safety and seclusion for the partygoers.
LUXURY CANALSIDE HOTEL
Bezos, 61, and Sanchez, 55, landed in Venice through helicopter on Wednesday and took up residence within the luxurious Aman resort, the place rooms with a view of the Grand Canal go for not less than 4,000 euros per evening.
They’re set to trade vows on Friday on the small island of San Giorgio, reverse St Mark’s Sq., in a ceremony which, in response to a senior Metropolis Corridor official, can have no authorized standing beneath Italian legislation.
Some have speculated that the couple have already legally wed in the USA, sparing them from the forms related to an Italian marriage.
Celebrations will conclude on Saturday with the primary marriage ceremony bash to be held at one of many halls of the Arsenale, an unlimited former medieval shipyard was an artwork house within the jap Castello district.
The “No Area for Bezos” motion is planning additional demonstrations in opposition to an occasion they see as a sell-off of Venice, however under no circumstances are all of the locals hostile.
MONEY-SPINNER
Politicians, hoteliers and different residents say high-end occasions, moderately than multitudes of low-spending daytrippers, are a greater option to help the native economic system, and dismiss the protesters as a fringe minority.
“In the event you have a look at what concretely the Bezos marriage ceremony brings for the nice of Venice, there are solely benefits and no disadvantages,” Mattia Brandi, a neighborhood tour chief, informed Reuters.
“If something is completely different, it’s due to the protesters … They do not realise that it’s them who’re disrupting the quiet lifetime of town,” he added.
Venice has hosted scores of VIP weddings. U.S. actor George Clooney and human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin tied the knot there in 2014, and Indian billionaires Vinita Agarwal and Muqit Teja did so in 2011, with out vital disruptions.
Bezos, govt chair of e-commerce large Amazon and No. 4 on Forbes’ billionaires record, received engaged to Sanchez in 2023, 4 years after the collapse of his 25-year marriage to MacKenzie Scott.
This text was generated from an automatic information company feed with out modifications to textual content.
